



I 
















PAUL CLIFFORD 
















Portrait of Bulwer. 

Original Etching by W. H. W. Bicknell. 



<‘Vii 1 v 

■ , . i , ' • • •>»•; : ■ 





ILLUSTRATED HOLIDAY EDITION 


PAUL CLIFFORD 


BY 

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON 

H 

(LORD LYTTON ) 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON 

DANA ESTES & COMPANY 
1898 


University Press : 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



ts 

v, 

# 

j 

TO 

ALBANY FONBLANQUE, 

WHOSE ACUTENESS OF WIT IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY THOSE 
WHO OPPOSE HIS OPINIONS, 


WHOSE INTEGRITY OF PURPOSE IS YET MORE RESPECTED BY 
THOSE WHO APPRECIATE HIS FRIENDSHIP, 

THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED. 


July, 1840. 


723 

• L 0 !^ 

To, 

I 4 



PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. 


This Novel so far differs from the other fictions by the 
same author that it seeks to draw its interest rather from 
practical than ideal sources. Out of some twelve Novels 
or Romances, embracing, however inadequately, a great 
variety of scene and character, — from “ Pelham ” to the 
“ Pilgrims of the Rhine,” from “ Rienzi ” to the “ Last Days 
of Pompeii,” — “ Paul Clifford ” is the only one in which a 
robber has been made the hero, or the peculiar phases 
of life which he illustrates have been brought into any 
prominent description. 

Without pausing to inquire what realm of manners or 
what order of crime and sorrow is open to art, and capable 
of administering to the proper ends of fiction, I may be 
permitted to observe that the present subject was selected, 
and the Novel written, with a twofold object: First, to 
draw attention to two errors in our penal institutions ; 
namely, a vicious prison-discipline, and a sanguinary crim- 
inal code, — the habit of corrupting the boy by the very 
punishment that ought to redeem him, and then hanging the 
man at the first occasion, as the easiest way of getting rid 
of our own blunders. Between the example of crime which 
the tyro learns from the felons in the prison-yard, and the 
horrible levity with which the mob gather round the drop 
at Newgate, there is a connection which a writer may be 
pardoned for quitting loftier regions of imagination to trace 
and to detect. So far this book is less a picture of the 


X 


PREFACE. 


this, if it could not pretend to influence or guide the temper 
of the times, it was at least a foresign of a coming change. 
Between the literature of imagination, and the practical 
interests of a people, there is a harmony as complete as it 
is mysterious. The heart of an author is the mirror of his 
age. The shadow of the sun is cast on the still surface of 
literature long before the light penetrates to law ; but it is 
ever from the sun that the shadow falls, and the moment 
we see the shadow we may be certain of the light. 

Since this work was written, society has been busy with 
the evils in which it was then silently acquiescent. The 
true movement of the last fifteen years has been the pro- 
gress of one idea, — Social Reform. There it advances with 
steady and noiseless march behind every louder question 
of constitutional change. Let us do justice to our time. 
There have been periods of more brilliant action on the 
destinies of States, but there is no time visible in History 
in which there was so earnest and general a desire to im- 
prove the condition of the great body of the people. In 
every circle of the community that healthful desire is astir. 
It unites in one object men of parties the most opposed ; it 
affords the most attractive nucleus for public meetings ; 
it has cleansed the statute-book from blood ; it is ridding 
the world of the hangman. It animates the clergy of all 
sects in the remotest districts ; it sets the squire on im- 
proving cottages and parcelling out allotments. Schools 
rise in every village ; in books the lightest, the Grand Idea 
colours the page, and bequeaths the moral. The Govern- 
ment alone (despite the professions on which the present 
Ministry was founded) remains unpenetrated by the com- 
mon genius of the age ; but on that question, with all the 
subtleties it involves, and the experiments it demands, — 
not indeed according to the dreams of an insane philosophy, 
but according to the immutable laws which proportion the 


PREFACE. 


xi 


rewards of labour to the respect for property, — a Govern- 
ment must be formed at last. 

There is in this work a subtler question suggested, but 
not solved, — that question which perplexes us in the gen- 
erous ardour of our early youth, — which, unsatisfactory as 
all metaphysics, we rather escape from than decide as we 
advance in years ; namely, make what laws we please, the 
man who lives within the pale can be as bad as the man 
without. Compare the Paul Clifford of the fiction with 
the William Brandon, — the hunted son with the honoured 
father, the outcast of the law with the dispenser of the 
law, the felon with the judge ; and as at the last they front 
each other, — one on the seat of justice, the other at the 
convict’s bar, — who can lay his hand on his heart and say 
that the Paul Clifford is a worse man than the William 
Brandon ? 

There is no immorality in a truth that enforces this 
question ; for it is precisely those offences which society 
cannot interfere with that society requires fiction to expose. 
Society is right, though youth is reluctant to acknowledge 
it. Society can form only certain regulations necessary for 
its self-defence, — the fewer the better, — punish those who 
invade, leave unquestioned those who respect them. But 
fiction follows truth into all the strongholds of convention ; 
strikes through the disguise, lifts the mask, bares the heart, 
and leaves a moral wherever it brands a falsehood. 

Out of this range of ideas the mind of the Author has, 
perhaps, emerged into an atmosphere which he believes to 
be more congenial to Art. But he can no more regret that 
he has passed through it than he can regret that while he 
dwelt there his heart, like his years, was young. Sympathy 
with the suffering that seems most actual, indignation at 
the frauds which seem most received as virtues, are the 
natural emotions of youth, if earnest. More sensible after- 


PREFACE. 


xii 

wards of the prerogatives, as of the elements, of Art, the 
Author, at least, seeks to escape where the man may not, 
and look on the practical world through the serener one of 
the ideal. 

With the completion of this work closed an era in the 
writer’s self-education. From “ Pelham” to “ Paul Clif- 
ford” (four fictions, all written at a very early age), the 
Author rather observes than imagines ; rather deals with 
the ordinary surface of human life than attempts, however 
humbly, to soar above it or to dive beneath. From depict- 
ing in “ Paul Clifford ” the errors of society, it was almost 
the natural progress of reflection to pass to those which 
swell to crime in the solitary human heart, — from the bold 
and open evils that spring from ignorance and example, to 
track those that lie coiled in the entanglements of refining 
knowledge and speculative pride. Looking back at this 
distance of years, I can see as clearly as if mapped before 
me, the paths which led across the boundary of invention 
from “ Paul Clifford ” to “ Eugene Aram.” And, that last 
work done, no less clearly can I see where the first gleams 
from a fairer fancy broke upon my way, and rested on those 
more ideal images which I sought with a feeble hand to 
transfer to the “ Pilgrims of the Rhine ” and the “ Last 
Days of Pompeii.” We authors, like the Children in the 
Fable, track our journey through the maze by the pebbles 
which we strew along the path. From others who wander 
after us, they may attract no notice, or, if noticed, seem to 
them but scattered by the caprice of chance ; but we, when 
our memory would retrace our steps, review in the humble 
stones the witnesses of our progress, the landmarks of our 
way. 


Knebworth, 1848. 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Etchings by W. II. W. Bicknell from drawings by W. L. Taylor 


page 

Portrait of Bulwer Frontispiece 

Dummie Dunnaker, Mrs. Lobkins, and Little Paul at “The 

Mug” 10 

Paul Clifford escorting Lucy Brandon to her Home . . 13 

In tiie Lodgings of the Highwaymen 249 


“On that evening, in tiie convict’s cell, the cousins met” 458 





PAUL CLIFFORD 


CHAPTER I. 

Say, ye oppressed by some fantastic woes, 

Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose, 

Who press the downy couch while slaves advance 
With timid eye to read the distant glance, 

Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease 
To name the nameless, ever-new disease, 

Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, 

Which real pain and that alone can cure, — 

How would you bear in real pain to lie 

Despised, neglected, left alone to die 1 

How would you bear to draw your latest breath 

Where all that ’s wretched paves the way to death ? — Crabbe. 

It was a dark and stormy night ; the rain fell in torrents, 
except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a vio- 
lent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in 
London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, 
and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that 
struggled against the darkness. Through one of the obscur- 
est quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the 
gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, 
was wending his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at 
different shops and houses of a description correspondent 
with the appearance of the quartier in which they were sit- 
uated, and tended inquiry for some article or another which 
did not seem easily to be met with. All the answers he 
received were couched in the negative; and as he turned from 
each door he muttered to himself, in no very elegant phrase- 
ology, his disappointment and discontent. At length, at one 


2 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


house, the landlord, a sturdy butcher, after rendering the 
same reply the inquirer had hitherto received, added, “But 
if this vill do as veil, Dummie, it is quite at your sarvice ! ” 
Pausing reflectively for a moment, Dummie responded that he 
thought the thing proffered might do as well ; and thrusting 
it into his ample pocket, he strode away with as rapid a 
motion as the wind and the rain would allow. He soon came 
to a nest of low and dingy buildings, at the entrance to which, 
in half-effaced characters, was written “Thames Court.” 
Halting at the most conspicuous of these buildings, an inn 
or alehouse, through the half -closed windows of which blazed 
out in ruddy comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he 
knocked hastily at the door. He was admitted by a lady of a 
certain age, and endowed with a comely rotundity of face and 
person. 

“Hast got it, Dummie?” said she, quickly, as she closed 
the door on the guest. 

“Noa, noa! not exactly; but I thinks as ? ow — ” 

“Pish, you fool!” cried the woman, interrupting him 
peevishly. “Vy, it is no use desaving me. You knows 
you has only stepped from my boosing-ken to another, and 
you has not been arter the book at all. So there ’s the poor 
cretur a raving and a dying, and you — ” 

“Let I speak!” interrupted Dummie in his turn. “I tells 
you I vent first to Mother Bussblone’s, who, I knows, chops 
the whiners morning and evening to the young ladies, and I 
axes there for a Bible ; and she says, says she, ‘ I ’as only a 
“Companion to the iZalter,” but you ’ll get a Bible, I think, 
at Master Talkins’, the cobbler as preaches.’ So I goes to 
Master Talkins, and he says, says he, 4 1 ’as no call for the 
Bible, — ’cause vy? I ’as a call vithout; but mayhap you ’ll 
be a getting it at the butcher’s hover the vay, — ’cause vy? 
The butcher’ll be damned!’ So I goes hover the vay, and 
the butcher says, says he, 4 1 ’as not a Bible, but I ’as a book 
of plays bound for all the vorld just like ’un, and mayhap the 
poor cretur may n’t see the difference. ’ So I takes the plays, 
Mrs. Margery, and here they be surety/ And how’s poor 
Judy?” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


3 


“Fearsome! she ’ll not be over the night, I ’m a thinking.” 

“Veil, I ’ll track up the dancers! ” 

So saying, Dummie ascended a doorless staircase, across 
the entrance of which a blanket, stretched angularly from the 
wall to the chimney, afforded a kind of screen; and presently 
he stood within a chamber which the dark and painful genius 
of Crabbe might have delighted to portray. The walls were 
whitewashed, and at sundry places strange figures and gro- 
tesque characters had been traced by some mirthful inmate, 
in such sable outline as the end of a smoked stick or the edge 
of a piece of charcoal is wont to produce. The wan and flick- 
ering light afforded by a farthing candle gave a sort of 
grimness and menace to these achievements of pictorial art, 
especially as they more than once received embellishments 
from portraits of Satan such as he is accustomed to be drawn. 
A low fire burned gloomily in the sooty grate, and on the hob 
hissed “ the still small voice ” of an iron kettle. On a round 
deal table were two vials, a cracked cup, a broken spoon of 
some dull metal, and upon two or three mutilated chairs were 
scattered various articles of female attire. On another table, 
placed below a high, narrow, shutterless casement (athwart 
which, instead of a curtain, a checked apron had been loosely 
hung, and now waved fitfully to and fro in the gusts of wind 
that made easy ingress through many a chink and cranny), 
were a looking-glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box 
of coarse rouge, a few ornaments of more show than value, 
and a watch, the regular and calm click of which produced 
that indescribably painful feeling which, we fear, many of 
our readers who have heard the sound in a sick-chamber can 
easily recall. A large tester-bed stood opposite to this table, 
and the looking-glass partially reflected curtains of a faded 
stripe, and ever and anon (as the position of the sufferer fol- 
lowed the restless emotion of a disordered mind) glimpses of 
the face of one on whom Death was rapidly hastening. Beside 
this bed now stood Dummie, a small, thin man dressed in a 
tattered plush jerkin, from which the rain-drops slowly 
dripped, and with a thin, yellow, cunning physiognomy gro- 
tesquely hideous in feature, but not positively villanous in 


4 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


expression. On the other side of the bed stood a little boy 
of about three years old, dressed as if belonging to the better 
classes, although the garb was somewhat tattered and discol- 
oured. The poor child trembled violently, and evidently 
looked with a feeling of relief on the entrance of Dummie. 
And now there slowly, and with many a phthisical sigh, 
heaved towards the foot of the bed the heavy frame of the 
woman who had accosted Dummie below, and had followed 
him, haud jpassibus cequis, to the room of the sufferer; she 
stood with a bottle of medicine in her hand, shaking its con- 
tents up and down, and with a kindly yet timid compassion 
spread over a countenance crimsoned with habitual libations. 
This made the scene, — save that on a chair by the bedside lay 
a profusion of long, glossy, golden ringlets, which had been 
cut from the head of the sufferer when the fever had begun to 
mount upwards, but which, with a jealousy that portrayed the 
darling littleness of a vain heart, she had seized and insisted 
on retaining near her; and save that, by the fire, perfectly 
inattentive to the event about to take place within the cham- 
ber, and to which we of the biped race attach so awful an 
importance, lay a large gray cat, curled in a ball, and dozing 
with half-shut eyes, and ears that now and then denoted, by a 
gentle inflection, the jar of a louder or nearer sound than 
usual upon her lethargic senses. The dying woman did not 
at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or the 
female at the foot of the bed, but she turned herself round 
towards the child, and grasping his arm fiercely, she drew 
him towards her, and gazed on his terrified features with a 
look in which exhaustion and an exceeding wanness of com- 
plexion were even horribly contrasted by the glare and energy 
of delirium. 

“If you are like him,” she muttered, “I will strangle you, 

I will! Ay, tremble, you ought to tremble when your 
mother touches you, or when he is mentioned. You have his 
eyes, you have! Out with them, out, — the devil sits laugh- 
ing in them! Oh, you weep, do you, little one? Well, now, 
be still, my love ; be hushed ! I would not harm thee! Harm 
— 0 God, he is my child after all! ” And at these words she 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 5 

clasped the boy passionately to her breast, and burst into 
tears. 

“Coom, now, coom,” said Dummie, soothingly; “take the 
stuff, Judith, and then ve ’ll talk over the hurchin! ” 

The mother relaxed her grasp of the boy, and turning 
towards the speaker, gazed at him for some moments with 
a bewildered stare; at length she appeared slowly to remem' 
ber him, and said, as she raised herself on one hand, and 
pointed the other towards him with an inquiring gesture, — 

“Thou hast brought the book?” 

Dummie answered by lifting up the book he had brought 
from the honest butcher’s. 

“Clear the room, then,” said the sufferer, with that air of 
mock command so common to the insane. “We would be 
alone ! ” 

Dummie winked at the good woman at the foot of the bed; 
and she (though generally no easy person to order or to per- 
suade) left, without reluctance, the sick chamber. 

“If she be a going to pray,” murmured our landlady (for 
that office did the good matron hold), “I may indeed as well 
take myself off, for it ’s not werry comfortable like to those 
who be old to hear all that ’ere ! ” 

With this pious reflection, the hostess of the Mug, — so was 
the hostelry called, — heavily descended the creaking stairs. 

“Now, man,” said the sufferer, sternly, “swear that you 
will never reveal, — swear, I say ! And by the great God 
whose angels are about this night, if ever you break the oath, 
I will come back and haunt you to your dying day ! ” 

Dummie’s face grew pale, for he was superstitiously affected 
by the vehemence and the language of the dying woman, and 
he answered, as he kissed the pretended Bible, that he swore 
to keep the secret, as much as he knew of it, which, she must 
be sensible, he said, was very little. As he spoke, the wind 
swept with a loud and sudden gust down the chimney, and 
shook the roof above them so violently as to loosen many of 
the crumbling tiles, which fell one after the other, with a 
crashing noise, on the pavement below. Dummie started in 
affright; and perhaps his conscience smote him for the trick 


6 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


lie had played with regard to the false Bible. But the woman, 
whose excited and unstrung nerves led her astray from one 
subject to another with preternatural celerity, said, with an 
hysterical laugh, “ See, Dummie, they come in state for me ; 
give me the cap — yonder — and bring the looking-glass ! ” 

Dummie obeyed; and the woman, as she in a low tone 
uttered something about the unbecoming colour of the rib- 
bons, adjusted the cap on her head, and then, saying in a 
regretful and petulant voice, “ Why should they have cut off 
my hair? Such a disfigurement! ” bade Dummie desire Mrs. 
Margery once more to ascend to her. 

Left alone with her child, the face of the wretched mother 
softened as she regarded him, and all the levities and all the 
vehemences — if we may use the word — which, in the turbu- 
lent commotion of her delirium, had been stirred upward to 
the surface of her mind, gradually now sank as death increased 
upon her, and a mother’s anxiety rose to the natural level from 
which it had been disturbed and abased. She took the child 
to her bosom, and clasping him in her arms, which grew 
weaker with every instant, she soothed him with the sort of 
chant which nurses sing over their untoward infants ; but her 
voice was cracked and hollow, and as she felt it was so, 
the mother’s eyes filled with tears. Mrs. Margery now re- 
entered; and turning towards the hostess with an impres- 
sive calmness of manner which astonished and awed the 
person she addressed, the dying woman pointed to the child 
and said, — 

“You have been kind to me, very kind, and may God bless 
you for it ! I have found that those whom the world calls the 
worst are often the most human . But I am not going to thank 
you as I ought to do, but to ask of you a last and exceeding 
favour. Protect my child till he grows up. You have often 
said you loved him, — you are childless yourself, — and a 
morsel of bread and a shelter for the night, which is all I 
ask of you to give him, will not impoverish more legitimate 
claimants.” 

Poor Mrs. Margery, fairly sobbing, vowed she would be a 
mother to the child, and that she would endeavour to rear 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 7 

him honestly ; though a public-house was not, she confessed, 
the best place for good examples. 

“Take him,” cried the mother, hoarsely, as her voice, fail- 
ing her strength, rattled indistinctly, and almost died within 
her. “Take him, rear him as you will, as you can; any 
example, any roof, better than — ” Here the words were 
inaudible. “And oh, may it be a curse and a — Give me 
the medicine; I am dying.” 

The hostess, alarmed, hastened to comply; but before she 
returned to the bedside, the sufferer was insensible, — nor 
did she again recover speech or motion. A low and rare 
moan only testified continued life, and within two hours that 
ceased, and the spirit was gone. At that time our good host- 
ess was herself beyond the things of this outer world, having 
supported her spirits during the vigils of the night with so 
many little liquid stimulants that they finally sank into that 
torpor which generally succeeds excitement. Taking, per- 
haps, advantage of the opportunity which the insensibility 
of the hostess afforded him, Dummie, by the expiring ray of 
the candle that burned in the death-chamber, hastily opened 
a huge box (which was generally concealed under the bed, 
and contained the wardrobe of the deceased), and turned with 
irreverent hand over the linens and the silks, until quite at 
the bottom of the trunk he discovered some packets of letters ; 
these he seized, and buried in the conveniences of his dress. 
He then, rising and replacing the box, cast a longing eye 
towards the watch on the toilet-table, which was of gold ; but 
he withdrew his gaze, and with a querulous sigh observed to 
himself: “The old blowen kens of that, ’od rat her! but, 
howsomever, I ’ll take this : who knows but it may be of 
sarvice. Tannies to-day may be smash to-morrow ! ” 1 and he 
laid his coarse hand on the golden and silky tresses we have 
described. “’Tis a rum business, and puzzles I; but mum’s 
the word for my own little colquarren .” 2 

With this brief soliloquy Dummie descended the stairs and 
let himself out of the house. 

1 Meaning, what is of no value now may be precious hereafter. 

2 Colquarren, neck. 


8 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


CHAPTER II. 

Imagination fondly stoops to trace 
The parlor splendours of that festive- place. 

Deserted Village. 

There is little to interest in a narrative of early childhood, 
unless, indeed, one were writing on education. We shall not, 
therefore, linger over the infancy of the motherless boy left 
to the protection of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, or, as she was 
sometimes familiarly called, Peggy, or Piggy, Lob. The 
good dame, drawing a more than sufficient income from the 
profits of a house which, if situated in an obscure locality, 
enjoyed very general and lucrative repute, and being a lone 
widow without kith or kin, had no temptation to break her 
word to the deceased, and she suffered the orphan to wax in 
strength and understanding until the age of twelve, — a period 
at which we are now about to reintroduce him to our readers. 

The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, and no incon- 
siderable quickness of intellect. In whatever he attempted, 
his success was rapid, and a remarkable strength of limb and 
muscle seconded well the dictates of an ambition turned, it 
must be confessed, rather to physical than mental exertion. 
It is not to be supposed, however, that his boyish life passed 
in unbroken tranquillity. Although Mrs. Lobkins was a good 
woman on the whole, and greatly attached to her protege, she 
was violent and rude in temper, or, as she herself more flat- 
teringly expressed it, “ her feelings were unkimmonly strong ; ” 
and alternate quarrel and reconciliation constituted the chief 
occupations of the protege’s domestic life. As, previous to 
his becoming the ward of Mrs. Lobkins, he had never re- 
ceived any other appellation than “ the child, ” so the duty of 
christening him devolved upon our hostess of the Mug ; and 
after some deliberation, she blessed him with the name of 
Paul. It was a name of happy omen, for it had belonged to Mrs. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


9 


Lobkins’s grandfather, who had been three times transported 
and twice hanged (at the first occurrence of the latter descrip- 
tion, he had been restored by the surgeons, much to the cha- 
grin of a young anatomist who was to have had the honour of 
cutting him up). The boy did not seem likely to merit the 
distinguished appellation he bore, for he testified no remark- 
able predisposition to the property of other people. Nay, 
although he sometimes emptied the pockets of any stray visi- 
tor to the coffee-room of Mrs. Lobkins, it appeared an act 
originating rather in a love of the frolic than a desire of the 
profit; for after the plundered person had been sufficiently 
tormented by the loss, haply, of such utilities as a tobacco- 
box or a handkerchief; after he had, to the secret delight of 
Paul, searched every corner of the apartment, stamped, and 
fretted, and exposed himself by his petulance to the bitter 
objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our young friend would quietly 
and suddenly contrive that the article missed should return of 
its own accord to the pocket from which it had disappeared. 
And thus, as our readers have doubtless experienced when 
they have disturbed the peace of a whole household for the 
loss of some portable treasure which they themselves are after- 
wards discovered to have mislaid, the unfortunate victim of 
Paul’s honest ingenuity, exposed to the collected indignation 
of the spectators, and sinking from the accuser into the con- 
victed, secretly cursed the unhappy lot which not only vexed 
him with the loss of his property, but made it still more 
annoying to recover it. 

Whether it was that, on discovering these pranks, Mrs. 
Lobkins trembled for the future bias of the address they dis- 
played, or whether she thought that the folly of thieving 
without gain required speedy and permanent correction, we 
cannot decide; but the good lady became at last extremely 
anxious to secure for Paul the blessings of a liberal education. 
The key of knowledge (the art of reading) she had, indeed, 
two years prior to the present date, obtained for him; but 
this far from satisfied her conscience, — nay, she felt that if 
she could not also obtain for him the discretion to use it, it 
would have been wise even to have withheld a key which the 


10 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


boy seemed perversely to apply to all locks but the right one. 
In a word, she was desirous that he should receive an educa- 
tion far superior to those whom he saw around him; and 
attributing, like most ignorant persons, too great advantages 
to learning, she conceived that in order to live as decorously 
as the parson of the parish, it was only necessary to know as 
much Latin. 

One evening in particular, as the dame sat by her cheerful 
fire, this source of anxiety was unusually active in her mind, 
and ever and anon she directed unquiet and restless glances 
towards Paul, who sat on a form at the opposite corner of the 
hearth, diligently employed in reading the life and adventures 
of the celebrated Richard Turpin. The form on which the 
boy sat was worn to a glassy smoothness, save only in certain 
places, where some ingenious idler or another had amused 
himself by carving sundry names, epithets, and epigrammatic 
niceties of language. It is said that the organ of carving upon 
wood is prominently developed on all English skulls; and the 
sagacious Mr. Combe has placed this organ at the back of the 
head, in juxtaposition to that of destructiveness, which is 
equally large among our countrymen, as is notably evinced 
upon all railings, seats, temples, and other things — belong- 
ing to other people. 

Opposite to the fireplace was a large deal table, at which 
Dummie, surnamed Dunnaker, seated near the dame, was 
quietly ruminating over a glass of hollands and water. 
Farther on, at another table in the corner of the room, a 
gentleman with a red wig, very rusty garments, and linen 
which seemed as if it had been boiled in saffron, smoked his 
pipe, apart, silent, and apparently plunged in meditation. 
This gentleman was no other than Mr. Peter MacGrawler, 
the editor of a magnificent periodical entitled “ The Asinseum, ” 
which was written to prove that whatever is popular is neces- 
sarily bad, — a valuable and recondite truth, which “ The 
Asinseum ” had satisfactorily demonstrated by ruining three 
printers and demolishing a publisher. We need not add that 
Mr. MacGrawler was Scotch by birth, since we believe it is 
pretty well known that all periodicals of this country have, 







* • ^ ^ •' M > • . ■ . • \ 

■ \ ' V. 

^ i r I - r i : 1 .W ‘ i .W • . mi ■ ■ 
-•:« f . ! . vV 


Dummie Dunmker, Mrs. Lobhins, and Little Paul 
at “ The Mug.” 

Etching by W. H. W. Bicknell. — From drawing by 
W. L. Taylor. 



W.fjWPicfnelf 




























PAUL CLIFFORD. 


11 


from time immemorial, been monopolized by the gentlemen 
of the Land of Cakes. We know not how it may be the fash- 
ion to eat the said cakes in Scotland, but here the good emi- 
grators seem to like them carefully buttered on both sides. 
By the side of the editor stood a large pewter tankard ; above 
him hung an engraving of the “ wonderfully fat boar formerly 
in the possession of Mr. Fattem, grazier.” To his left rose 
the dingy form of a thin, upright clock in an oaken case; 
beyond the clock, a spit and a musket were fastened in par- 
allels to the wall. Below those twin emblems of war and 
cookery were four shelves, containing plates of pewter and 
delf, and terminating, centaur-like, in a sort of dresser. At 
the other side of these domestic conveniences was a picture of 
Mrs. Lobkins, in a scarlet body and a hat and plume. At the 
back of the fair hostess stretched the blanket we have before 
mentioned. As a relief to the monotonous surface of this sim- 
ple screen, various ballads and learned legends were pinned to 
the blanket. There might you read in verses, pathetic and 
unadorned, how — 

“ Sally loved a sailor lad 

As fought with famous Shovel ! ” 

There might you learn, if of two facts so instructive you were 
before unconscious, that — 

“ Ben the toper loved his bottle, — 

Charley only loved the lasses ! ” 

When of these and various other poetical effusions you were 
somewhat wearied, the literary fragments in humbler prose 
afforded you equal edification and delight. There might you 
fully enlighten yourself as to the “Strange and Wonderful 
News from Kensington, being a most full and true Relation 
how a Maid there is supposed to have been carried away by an 
Evil Spirit on Wednesday, 15th of April last, about Mid 
night.” There, too, no less interesting and no less veracious, 
was that uncommon anecdote touching the chief of many- 
throned powers entitled “The Divell of Mascon; or, the true 
Relation of the Chief Things which an Unclean Spirit did and 




12 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


said at Mascon, in Burgundy, in the house of one Mr. Francis 
Pereaud: now made English by one that hath a Particular 
Knowledge of the Truth of the Story.” 

Nor were these materials for Satanic history the only prosaic 
and faithful chronicles which the bibliothecal blanket afforded. 
Equally wonderful, and equally indisputable, was the account 
of “a young lady, the daughter of a duke, with three legs and 
the face of a porcupine.” Nor less so “The Awful Judgment 
of God upon Swearers, as exemplified in the case of John 
Stiles, who Dropped down dead after swearing a Great Oath ; 
and on stripping the unhappy man they found ‘ Swear not at 
all ’ written on the tail of his shirt! ” 

Twice had Mrs. Lobkins heaved a long sigh, as her eyes 
turned from Paul to the tranquil countenance of Dummie 
Dunnaker, and now, re-settling herself in her chair, as a 
motherly anxiety gathered over her visage, — 

“Paul, my ben cull,” said she, “what gibberish hast got 
there?” 

“ Turpin, the great highwayman ! ” answered the young 
student, without lifting his eyes from the page, through 
which he was spelling his instructive way. 

“Oh! he be’s a chip of the right block, dame!” said Mr. 
Dunnaker, as he applied his pipe to an illumined piece of 
paper. “ He ? 11 ride a ? oss foaled by a hacorn yet, I 
varrants ! ” 

To this prophecy the dame replied only with a look of 
indignation ; and rocking herself to and fro in her huge chair, 
she remained for some moments in silent thought. At last 
she again wistfully eyed the hopeful boy, and calling him to 
her side, communicated some order, in a dejected whisper. 
Paul, on receiving it, disappeared behind the blanket, and 
presently returned with a bottle and a wineglass. With an 
abstracted gesture, and an air that betokened continued medi- 
tation, the good dame took the inspiring cordial from the hand 
of her youthful cupbearer, — 

“ And ere a man had power to say ‘ Behold ! * 

The jaws of Lobkins had devoured it up : 

So quick bright things come to confusion ! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


13 


The nectarean beverage seemed to operate cheerily on the 
matron’s system; and placing her hand on the boy’s curly 
head, she said (like Andromache, dakruon gelasasa , or, as 
Scott hath it, “ With a smile on her cheek, but a tear in her 
eye ”)> — 

“ Paul, thy heart be good, thy heart be good ; thou didst not 
spill a drop of the tape ! Tell me, my honey, why didst thou 
lick Tom Tobyson?” 

“ Because,” answered Paul, “he said as how you ought to 
have been hanged long ago.” 

“Tom Tobyson is a good-for-nought, ” returned the dame, 
“and deserves to shove the tumbler ; 1 but oh, my child, be not 
too venturesome in taking up the sticks for a blowen, — it has 
been the ruin of many a man afore you; and when two men 
goes to quarrel for a ’oman, they does n’t know the natur’ of 
the thing they quarrels about. Mind thy latter end, Paul, 
and reverence the old, without axing what they has been 
before they passed into the wale of years. Thou mayst get 
me my pipe, Paul, — it is upstairs, under the pillow.” 

While Paul was accomplishing this errand, the lady of the 
Mug, fixing her eyes upon Mr. Dunnaker, said, “Dummie, 
Dummie, if little Paul should come to be scragged ! ” 

“ Whish ! ” muttered Dummie, glancing over his shoulder 
at MacGrawler; “mayhap that gemman — ” Here his voice 
became scarcely audible even to Mrs. Lobkins; but his whis- 
per seemed to imply an insinuation that the illustiious editor 
of “The Asinseum” might be either an informer, or one of 
those heroes on whom an informer subsists. 

Mrs. Lobkins’s answer, couched in the same key, ap- 
peared to satisfy Dunnaker, for with a look of great con- 
tempt he chucked up his head and said, “Oho! that be all, 
be it ! ” 

Paul here reappeared with the pipe ; and the dame, having 
filled the tube, leaned forward, and lighted the Virginian weed 
from the blower of Mr. Dunnaker. As in this interesting 
occupation the heads of the hostess and the guest approached 
each other, the glowing light playing cheerily on the counte- 

1 Be whipped at the cart’s tail. 


14 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


nance of each, there was an honest simplicity in the picture 
that would have merited the racy and vigorous genius of a 
Cruikshank. As soon as the Promethean spark had been 
fully communicated to the lady’s tube, Mrs. Lobkins, still 
possessed by the gloomy idea she had conjured up, repeated, — 
“ Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragged ! ” 

Dummie, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, heaved a 
sympathizing puff, but remained silent; and Mrs. Lobkins, 
turning to Paul, who stood with mouth open and ears erect at 
this boding ejaculation, said, — 

“Dost think, Paul, they ’d have the heart to hang thee?” 

“I think they ’d have the rope, dame! ” returned the youth. 
“ But you need not go for to run your neck into the noose ! ” 
said the matron ; and then, inspired by the spirit of moraliz- 
ing, she turned round to the youth, and gazing upon his 
attentive countenance, accosted him with the following 
admonitions : — 

“ Mind thy kittychism, child, and reverence old age. Never 
steal, ’specially when any one be in the way. Never go snacks 
with them as be older than you, — ’cause why? The older a 
cove be, the more he cares for hisself, and the less for his 
partner. At twenty, we diddles the public ; at forty, we did- 
dles our cronies ! Be modest, Paul, and stick to your situa- 
tion in life. Go not with fine toby men, who burn out like a 
candle wot has a thief in it, — all flare, and gone in a whiffy ! 
Leave liquor to the aged, who can’t do without it. Tape 
often proves a halter, and there be’s no ruin like blue ruin! 
Bead your Bible, and talk like a pious ’un. People goes more 
by your words than your actions. If you wants what is not 
your own, try and do without it; and if you cannot do with- 
out it, take it away by insinivation, not bluster. They as 
swindles does more and risks less than they as robs ; and if 
you cheats toppingly, you may laugh at the topping cheat . 1 
And now go play.” 

Paul seized his hat, but lingered; and the dame, guessing 
at the signification of the pause, drew forth and placed in 
the boy’s hand the sum of five halfpence and one farthing. 

1 Gallows. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


15 


‘‘ There, boy,” quoth she, and she stroked his head fondly 
when she spoke, “you does right not to play for nothing, — 
it ’s loss of time; but play with those as be less than yoursel’, 
and then you can go for to beat ’em if they says you go for to 
cheat ! ” 

Paul vanished; and the dame, laying her hand on Dum* 
mie’s shoulder, said, — 

“There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie; and 
somehow or other, I thinks as how you knows more of the 
horigin of that ’ere lad than any of us ! ” 

“ Me, dame ! ” exclaimed Dummie, with a broad gaze of 
astonishment. 

“Ah, you! you knows as how the mother saw more of you 
just afore she died than she did of ’ere one of us. Noar, now, 
noar, now! Tell us all about ’un. Did she steal ’un, think 
ye?” 

“Lauk, Mother Margery, dost think I knows? Vot put 
such a crotchet in your ’ead?” 

“Well!” said the dame, with a disappointed sigh, “I 
always thought as how you were more knowing about it 
than you owns. Dear, dear, I shall never forgit the night 
when Judith brought the poor cretur here, — you knows she 
had been some months in my house afore ever I see ’d the 
Urchin; and when she brought it, she looked so pale and 
ghostly that I had not the heart to say a word, so I stared at 
the brat, and it stretched out its wee little hands to me. And 
the mother frowned at it, and throwed it into my lap.” 

“Ah! she was a hawful voman, that ’ere!” said Dummie, 
shaking his head. “But howsomever, the hurchin fell into 
good ’ands ; for I be ’s sure you ’as been a better mother to ’un 
than the raal ’un ! ” 

“I was always a fool about childer,” rejoined Mrs. Lobkins; 

“ and I thinks as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to 
my latter end! Fill the glass, Dummie.” 

“I ’as heard as ’ow Judith was once blowen to a great 
lord! ” said Dummie. 

“Like enough!” returned Mrs. Lobkins, — “like enough! 
She was always a favourite of mine, for she had a spuret 


16 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


[spirit] as big as my own; and she paid her rint like a decent 
body, for all she was out of her sinses, or ’nation like it.” 

“ Ay, I knows as how you liked her, — ’cause vy? ’T is not 
your vay to let a room to a voman! You says as how ’t is not 
respectable, and you only likes men to wisit the Mug! ” 

“And I doesn’t like all of them as comes here! ” answered 
the dame, — “’specially for Paul’s sake; but what can a lone 
’oman do? Many’s the gentleman highwayman wot comes 
here, whose money is as good as the clerk’s of the parish. 
And when a bob 1 is in my hand, what does it sinnify whose 
hand it was in afore?” 

“That’s what I call being sinsible and practical,” said 
Dummie, approvingly. “And arter all, though you ’as a 
mixture like, I does not know a halehouse where a cove is 
better entertained, nor meets of a Sunday more illegant com- 
pany, than the Mug ! ” 

Here the conversation, which the reader must know had 
been sustained in a key inaudible to a third person, received 
a check from Mr. Peter MacGrawler, who, having finished his 
revery and his tankard, now rose to depart. First, however, 
approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he had gone on 
credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill. 
Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the 
wall at the other side of the fireplace, the dame answered that 
Mr. MacGrawler was indebted to her for the sum of one shill- 
ing and ninepence three farthings. 

Arter a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets, 
the critic hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and 
having caught it between his finger and thumb, he gave it to 
Mrs. Lobkins and requested change. 

As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what 
has been called by some ingenious Johnson of St. Giles’s “the 
oil of palms,” her countenance softened into a complacent 
smile; and when she gave the required change to Mr. Mac- 
Grawler, she graciously hoped as how he would recommend 
the Mug to the public. 

“That you may be sure of,” said the editor of “The 
1 Shilling. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


17 

Asinseum.” “ There is not a place where I am so much at 
home.” 

With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went 
his way. 

“How spiteful the world be!” said Mrs. Lobkins, after a 
pause, “’specially if a ’oman keeps a fashionable sort of a 
public! When Judith died, Joe, the dog’s-meat man, said 
I war all the better for it, and that she left I a treasure to 
bring up the urchin. One would think a thumper makes a 
man richer, — ’cause why? Every man thumps! I got 
nothing more than a watch and ten guineas when Judy 
died, and sure that scarce paid for the burrel [burial].” 

“ You forgits the two quids 1 I giv’ you for the hold box of 
rags, — much of a treasure I found there ! ” said Dummie, 
with sycophantic archness. 

“Ay,” cried the dame, laughing, “I fancies you war not 
pleased with the bargain. I thought you war too old a rag- 
merchant to be so free with the blunt; howsomever, I sup- 
poses it war the tinsel petticoat as took you in ! ” 

“As it has mony a viser man than the like of I,” rejoined 
Dummie, who to his various secret professions added the 
ostensible one of a rag-merchant and dealer in broken glass. 

The recollection of her good bargain in the box of rags 
opened our landlady’s heart. 

“Drink, Dummie,” said she, good-humouredly, — “drink; 
I scorns to score lush to a friend.” 

Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his glass, and the 
hospitable matron, knocking out from her pipe the dying 
ashes, thus proceeded : — 

“You sees, Dummie, though I often beats the boy, I loves 
him as much as if I war his raal mother, — I wants to make 
him an honour to his country, and an ixciption to my family! ” 

“Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeons’ Hall!” added 
the metaphorical Dummie. 

“True!” said the lady; “they died game, and I be n’t 
ashamed of ’em. But I owes a duty to Paul’s mother, and j 
wants Paul to have a long life. I would send him to school, 


1 Guineas. 
2 


18 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


but you knows as bow the boys only corrupt one another. 
And so, I should like to meet with some decent man, as a 
tutor, to teach the lad Latin and vartue ! ” 

“ My eyes ! ” cried Dummie, aghast at the grandeur of this 
desire. 

“The boy is ’cute enough, and he loves reading,” con- 
tinued the dame ; but I does not think the books he gets hold 
of will teach him the way to grow old.” 

“And ’ow came he to read, anyhows?” 

“ Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taught him his letters, 
and said he ’d a deal of janius.” 

“ And why should not Ranting Rob tache the boy Latin and 
vartue?” 

“ ’Cause Ranting Rob, poor fellow, was lagged for doing a 
panny ! ” 1 answered the dame, despondently. 

There was a long silence; it was broken by Mr. Dummie. 
Slapping his thigh with the gesticulatory vehemence of a Ugo 
Foscolo, that gentleman exclaimed, — 

“7 ’as it, — I ’as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul! ” 

“Who’s that? You quite frightens me; you ’as no marcy 
on my narves,” said the dame, fretfully. 

“ Yy, it be the gemman vot writes, ” said Dummie, putting his 
finger to his nose, — “ the gemman vot paid you so flashly ! ” 

“What! the Scotch gemman?” 

“ The werry same ! ” returned Dummie. 

The dame turned in her chair and refilled her pipe. It was 
evident from her manner that Mr. Dunnaker’s suggestion had 
made an impression on her. But she recognized two doubts 
as to its feasibility: one, whether the gentleman proposed 
would be adequate to the task ; the other, whether he would 
be willing to undertake it. 

In the midst of her meditations on this matter, the dame 
was interrupted by the entrance of certain claimants on her 
hospitality; and Dummie soon after taking his leave, the 
suspense of Mrs. Lobkins’s mind touching the education of 
little Paul remained the whole of that day and night utterly 
unrelieved. 


1 Transported for burglary. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


19 


CHAPTER III. 

I own that I am envioug of the pleasure you will have in finding yourself 
more learned than other boys, — even those who are older than yourself. 
What honour this will do you ! What distinctions, what applauses will follow 
wherever you go ! — Lord Chesterfield : Letters to his Son. 

Example, my boy, — example is worth a thousand precepts. 

Maximilian Solemn. 

Tarpeia was crushed beneath the weight of ornaments. 
The language of the vulgar is a sort of Tarpeia. We have 
therefore relieved it of as many gems as we were able, and in 
the foregoing scene presented it to the gaze of our readers 
simplex munditiis. Nevertheless, we could timidly imagine 
some gentler beings of the softer sex rather displeased with 
the tone of the dialogue we have given, did we not recollect 
how delighted they are with the provincial barbarities of the 
sister kingdom, whenever they meet them poured over the 
pages of some Scottish story-teller. As, unhappily for man- 
kind, broad Scotch is not yet the universal language of Europe, 
we suppose our countrywomen will not be much more unac- 
quainted with the dialect of their own lower orders than with 
that which breathes nasal melodies over the paradise of the 
North. 

It was the next day, at the hour of twilight, when Mrs. 
Margery Lobkins, after a satisfactory tete-ci-tete with Mr. 
MacGrawler, had the happiness of thinking that she had 
provided a tutor for little Paul. The critic having recited to 
her a considerable portion of Propria quae Maribus , the good 
lady had no longer a doubt of his capacities for teaching; and 
on the other hand, when Mrs. Lobkins entered on the subject 
of remuneration, the Scotsman professed himself perfectly 
willing to teach any and every thing that the most exacting 
guardian could require. It was finally settled that Paul 
should attend Mr. MacGrawler two hours a day; that Mr, 


20 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


MacGrawler should be entitled to such animal comforts ot 
meat and drink as the Mug afforded, and, moreover, to the 
weekly stipend of two shillings and sixpence, — the shillings 
for instruction in the classics, and the sixpence for all other 
humanities; or, as Mrs. Lobkins expressed it, “two bobs for 
the Latin, and a sice for the vartue.” 

Let not thy mind, gentle reader, censure us for a deviation 
from probability in making so excellent and learned a gentle- 
man as Mr. Peter MacGrawler the familiar guest of the lady 
of the Mug. First, thou must know that our story is cast in 
a period antecedent to the present, and one in which the old 
jokes against the circumstances of author and of critic had 
their foundation in truth; secondly, thou must know that by 
some curious concatenation of circumstances neither bailiff 
nor bailiff’s man was ever seen within the four walls conti- 
nent of Mrs. Margery Lobkins; thirdly, the Mug was nearer 
than any other house of public resort to the abode of the 
critic; fourthly, it afforded excellent porter; and fifthly, O 
reader, thou dost Mrs. Margery Lobkins a grievous wrong if 
thou supposest that her door was only open to those mercurial 
gentry who are afflicted with the morbid curiosity to pry into 
the mysteries of their neighbours’ pockets, — other visitors, 
of fair repute, were not unoften partakers of the good matron’s 
hospitality; although it must be owned that they generally 
occupied the private room in preference to the public one. 
And sixthly, sweet reader (we grieve to be so prolix), we 
would just hint to thee that Mr. MacGrawler was one of 
those vast-minded sages who, occupied "• in contemplating 
morals in the great scale, do not fritter down their intel- 
lects by a base attention to minute details. So "that if a 
descendant of Langfanger did sometimes cross the venerable 
Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did not revolt 
that benevolent moralist so much as, were it not for the above 
hint, thy ignorance might lead thee to imagine. 

It is said that Athenodorus the Stoic contribute greatly by 
his conversation to amend the faults of Augustus, and to effect 
the change visible in that fortunate man after his accession to 
the Roman empire. If this be true, it may throw a new light 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


21 


on the character of Augustus, and instead of being the hypo 
crite, he was possibly the convert. Certain it is that there 
are few vices which cannot be conquered by wisdom ; and yet, 
melancholy to relate, the instructions of Peter MacGrawler 
produced but slender amelioration in the habits of the youth- 
ful Paul. That ingenious stripling had, we have already 
seen, under the tuition of Ranting Bob, mastered the art of 
reading, — nay, he could even construct and link together 
certain curious pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs. Lobkins 
were wont graciously to term “ writing.” So far, then, the 
way of MacGrawler was smoothed and prepared. 

But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow that the 
main difficulty is not to learn, but to unlearn ; and the mind 
of Paul was already occupied by a vast number of heterogene- 
ous miscellanies which stoutly resisted the ingress either of 
Latin or of virtue. Nothing could wean him from an ominous 
affection for the history of Richard Turpin; it was to him 
what, it has been said, the Greek authors should be to the 
Academician, — a study by day, and a dream by night. He 
was docile enough during lessons, and sometimes even too 
quick in conception for the stately march of Mr. MacGraw- 
ler’s intellect. But it not unfrequently happened that when 
that gentleman attempted to rise, he found himself, like the 
Lady in “Comus,” adhering to — 

“ A venom ed seat 

Smeared with gums of glutinous heat ; ” 

or his legs had been secretly united under the table, and the 
tie was not to be broken without overthrow to the superior 
powers. These, and various other little sportive machinations 
wherewith Paul was wont to relieve the monotony of litera- 
ture, went far to disgust the learned critic with his undertak- 
ing. But “the tape” and the treasury of Mrs. Lobkins 
re-smoothed, as it were, the irritated bristles of his mind, and 
he continued his labours with this philosophical reflection: 
“Why fret myself? If a pupil turns out well, it is clearly to 
the credit of his master ; if not, to the disadvantage of himself.” 
Of course, a similar suggestion never forced itself into the mind 


22 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


of Dr. Keate. 1 At Eton the very soul of the honest head- 
master is consumed by his zeal for the welfare of the little 
gentlemen in stiff cravats. 

But to Paul, who was predestined to enjoy a certain quan- 
tum of knowledge, circumstances happened, in the commence- 
ment of the second year of his pupilage, which prodigiously 
accelerated the progress of his scholastic career. 

At the apartment of MacGrawler, Paul one morning encoun- 
tered Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, a young man of great promise, 
who pursued the peaceful occupation of chronicling in a lead- 
ing newspaper “Horrid Murders,” “Enormous Melons,” and 
“Remarkable Circumstances.” This gentleman, having the 
advantage of some years’ seniority over Paul, was slow in 
unbending his dignity; but observing at last the eager and 
respectful attention with which the stripling listened to a 
most veracious detail of five men being inhumanly murdered 
in Canterbury Cathedral by the Reverend Zedekiah Fooks 
Barnacle, he was touched by the impression he had created, 
and shaking Paul graciously by the hand, he told him there 
was a deal of natural shrewdness in his countenance, and that 
Mr. Augustus Tomlinson did not doubt but that he (Paul) 
might have the honour to be murdered himself one of these 
days. “You understand me,” continued Mr. Augustus, — “I 
mean murdered in effigy, — assassinated in type, — while you 
yourself, unconscious of the circumstance, are quietly enjoy- 
ing what you imagine to be your existence. We never kill 
common persons, — to say truth, our chief spite is against 
the Church; we destroy bishops by wholesale. Sometimes, 
indeed, we knock off a leading barrister or so, and express 
the anguish of the junior counsel at a loss so destructive to 
their interests. But that is only a stray hit, and the slain 
barrister often lives to become Attorney-General, renounce 
Whig principles, and prosecute the very Press that destroyed 
him. Bishops are our proper food; we send them to heaven on 
a sort of flying griffin, of which the back is an apoplexy, and 

the wings are puffs. The Bishop of , whom we despatched 

in this manner the other day, being rather a facetious person- 
1 A celebrated principal of Eton. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


23 


age, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon, observing that 
though heaven was a very good translation for a bishop, yet 
that in such cases he preferred * the original to the transla- 
tion.’ As we murder bishop, so is there another class of per- 
sons whom we only afflict with lethiferous diseases. This 
latter tribe consists of his Majesty and his Majesty’s minis- 
ters. Whenever we cannot abuse their measures, we always 
fall foul on their health. Does the king pass any popular 
law, we immediately insinuate that his constitution is on its 
last legs. Does the minister act like a man of sense, we 
instantly observe, with great regret, that his complexion is 
remarkably pale. There is one manifest advantage in diseas- 
ing people, instead of absolutely destroying them : the public 
may flatly contradict us in one case, but it never can in the 
other; it is easy to prove that a man is alive, but utterly im- 
possible to prove that he is in health. What if some oppos- 
ing newspaper take up the cudgels in his behalf, and assert 
that the victim of all Pandora’s complaints, whom we send 
tottering to the grave, passes one half the day in knocking up 
a 1 * distinguished company 9 at a shooting-party, and the other 
half in outdoing the same ‘ distinguished company ’ after din- 
ner? What if the afflicted individual himself write us word 
that he never was better in his life? We have only mysteri- 
ously to shake our heads and observe that to contradict is not 
to prove, that it is little likely that our authority should have 
been mistaken, and (we are very fond of an historical com- 
parison), beg our readers to remember that when Cardinal 
Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much as hinting 
that he was ill. In short, if Horace is right, we are the very 
princes of poets ; for I dare say, Mr. MacGrawler, that you — 
and you, too, my little gentleman, perfectly remember the 
words of the wise old Roman, — 

“ ‘ Ule per extentum funem mihi posse videtur 
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, 

Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet/ ” 1 


1 “ He appears to me to be, to the fullest extent, a poet who airily tor- 

ments my breast, irritates, soothes, fills it with unreal terrors.” 


24 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Having uttered this quotation with considerable self-com- 
placency, and thereby entirely completed his conquest over 
Paul, Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, turning to MacGrawler, con- 
cluded his business with that gentleman, — which was of a 
literary nature, namely, a joint composition against a man 
who, being under five-and-twenty, and too poor to give din- 
ners, had had the impudence to write a sacred poem. The 
critics were exceedingly bitter at this; and having very little 
to say against the poem, the Court journals called the author 
a “coxcomb,” and the liberal ones “the son of a pantaloon! ” 

There was an ease, a spirit, a life about Mr. Augustus 
Tomlinson, which captivated the senses of our young hero; 
then, too, he was exceedingly smartly attired, — wore red 
heels and a bag, — had what seemed to Paul quite the air of a 
“ man of fashion ; ” and, above all, he spouted the Latin with 
a remarkable grace ! 

Some days afterwards, MacGrawler sent our hero to Mr. 
Tomlinson’s lodgings, with his share of the joint abuse upon 
the poet. 

Doubly was Paul’s reverence for Mr. Augustus Tomlinson 
increased by a sight of his abode. He found him settled in a 
polite part of the town, in a very spruce parlour, the contents 
of which manifested the universal genius of the inhabitant. 
It hath been objected unto us, by a most discerning critic, 
that we are addicted to the drawing of “universal geniuses.” 
We plead Not Guilty in former instances; we allow the soft 
impeachment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. 
Over his fireplace were arranged boxing-gloves and fencing- 
foils ; on his table lay a cremona and a flageolet. On one side 
of the wall were shelves containing the Covent Garden Maga- 
zine, Burn’s Justice, a pocket Horace, a Prayer-Book, Ex- 
cerpta ex Tacito , a volume of plays, Philosophy made Easy, 
and a Key to all Knowledge. Furthermore, there were on 
another table a riding-whip and a driving-whip and a pair of 
spurs, and three guineas, with a little mountain of loose sil- 
ver. Mr. Augustus was a tall, fair young man, with a 
freckled complexion, green eyes and red eyelids, a smiling 
mouth, rather under-jawed, a sharp nose, and a prodigiously 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 25 

large pair of ears. He was robed in a green damask dressing- 
gown ; and be received the tender Paul most graciously. 

There was something very engaging about our hero. He 
was not only good-looking, and frank in aspect, but he had 
that appearance of briskness and intellect which belongs to 
an embryo rogue. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson professed the 
greatest regard for him, — asked him if he could box, made 
him put on a pair of gloves, and very condescendingly 
knocked him down three times successively. Next he 
played him, both upon his flageolet and his cremona, some 
of the most modish airs. Moreover, he sang him a little song 
of his own composing. He then, taking up the driving-whip, 
flanked a fly from the opposite wall, and throwing himself 
(naturally fatigued with his numerous exertions) on his sofa, 
observed, in a careless tone, that he and his friend Lord 
Dunshunner were universally esteemed the best whips in the 
metropolis. “I,” quoth Mr. Augustus, “am the best on the 
road; but my lord is a devil at turning a corner. ” 

Paul, who had hitherto lived too unsophisticated a life to 
be aware of the importance of which a lord would naturally 
be in the eyes of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, was not so much 
struck with the grandeur of the connection as the murderer of 
the journals had expected. He merely observed, by way of 
compliment, that Mr. Augustus and his companion seemed 
to be “rolling kiddies.” 

A little displeased with this metaphorical remark, — for it 
may be observed that “ rolling kiddy ” is, among the learned 
in such lore, the customary expression for “a smart thief,” — 
the universal Augustus took that liberty to which by his age 
and station, so much superior to those of Paul, he imagined 
himself entitled, and gently reproved our hero for his indis- 
criminate use of flash phrases. 

“ A lad of your parts, ” said he, — “ for I see you are clever, 
by your eye, — ought to be ashamed of using such vulgar 
expressions. Have a nobler spirit, a loftier emulation, Paul, 
than that which distinguishes the little ragamuffins of the 
street. Know that in this country genius and learning carry 
everything before them ; and if you behave yourself properly, 


26 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


you may, one day or another, be as high in the world as 
myself.” 

At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the spruce 
parlour, and thought what a fine thing it would be to be 
lord of such a domain, together with the appliances of flageo- 
let and cremona, boxing-gloves, books, fly -flanking flagellum, 
three guineas, with the little mountain of silver, and the repu- 
tation — shared only with Lord Dunshunner — of being the 
best whip in London. 

“Yes,” continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, “I owe 
my rise to myself. Learning is better than house and land. 
‘Doctrina sedvim,' etc. You know what old Horace says? 
Why, sir, you would not believe it; but I was the man who 
killed his Majesty the King of Sardinia in our yesterday's 
paper. Nothing is too arduous for genius. Fag hard, my 
boy, and you may rival (for the thing, though difficult, may 
not be impossible) Augustus Tomlinson ! ” 

At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at the door 
being heard, Paul took his departure, and met in the hall a 
fine-looking person dressed in the height of the fashion, and 
wearing a pair of prodigiously large buckles in his shoes. 
Paul looked, and his heart swelled. “I may rival,” thought 
he, — “ those were his very words, — I may rival (for the 
thing, though difficult, is not impossible) Augustus Tomlin- 
son ! ” Absorbed in meditation, he went silently home. The 
next day the memoirs of the great Turpin were committed to 
the flames, and it was noticeable that henceforth Paul observed 
a choicer propriety of words, that he assumed a more refined 
air of dignity, and that he paid considerably more attention 
than heretofore to the lessons of Mr. Peter MacGrawler. 
Although it must be allowed that our young hero's progress 
in the learned languages was not astonishing, yet an early 
passion for reading, growing stronger and stronger by appli- 
cation, repaid him at last with a tolerable knowledge of the 
mother-tongue. We must, however, add that his more favour- 
ite and cherished studies were scarcely of that nature which 
a prudent preceptor would have greatly commended. They 
lay chiefly among novels, plays, and poetry, — which last he 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


27 


affected to that degree that he became somewhat of a poet him* 
self. Nevertheless these literary avocations, profitless as 
they seemed, gave a certain refinement to his tastes which 
they were not likely otherwise to have acquired at the Mug; 
and while they aroused his ambition to see something of the 
gay life they depicted, they imparted to his temper a tone of 
enterprise and of thoughtless generosity which perhaps con- 
tributed greatly to counteract those evil influences towards 
petty vice to which the examples around him must have 
exposed his tender youth. But, alas! a great disappoint- 
ment to Paul’s hope of assistance and companionship in his 
literary labours befell him. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, one 
bright morning, disappeared, leaving word with his numerous 
friends that he was going to accept a lucrative situation 
in the North of England. Notwithstanding the shock this 
occasioned to the affectionate heart and aspiring temper of 
our friend Paul, it abated not his ardour in that field of 
science which it seemed that the distinguished absentee had 
so successfully cultivated. By little and little, he possessed 
himself (in addition to the literary stores we have alluded to) 
of all it was in the power of the wise and profound Peter 
MacGrawler to impart unto him ; and at the age of sixteen he 
began (oh the presumption of youth !) to fancy himself more 
learned than his master. 


CHAPTER IV. 

He had now become a young man of extreme fashion, and as much rfyandu 
in society as the utmost and most exigent coveter of London celebrity could 
desire. He was, of course, a member of the clubs, etc. He was, in short, of 
that oft-described set before whom all minor beaux sink into insignificance, 
or among whom they eventually obtain a subaltern grade , by a sacrifice of a 
due portion of their fortune. — Almack’s Revisited. 

By the soul of the great Malebranche, who made “A Search 
after Truth,” and discovered everything beautiful except that 
which he searched for, — by the soul of the great Malebranche, 


28 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


whom Bishop Berkeley found suffering under an inflammation 
in the lungs, and very obligingly talked to death (an instance 
of conversational powers worthy the envious emulation of all 
great metaphysicians and arguers), — by the soul of that illus- 
trious man, it is amazing to us what a number of truths there 
are broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and 
there through the world. What a magnificent museum a man 
might make of the precious minerals, if he would but go out 
with his basket under his arm, and his eyes abofit him! We 
ourselves picked up this very day a certain small piece of 
truth, with which we propose to explain to thee, fair reader, 
a sinister turn in the fortunes of Paul. 

“Wherever,” says a living sage, “you see dignity, you may 
be sure there is expense requisite to support it.” 1 So was it 
with Paul. A young gentleman who was heir-presumptive to 
the Mug, and who enjoyed a handsome person with a culti- 
vated mind, was necessarily of a certain station of society, and 
an object of respect in the eyes of the manoeuvring mammas 
of the vicinity of Thames Court. Many were the parties of 
pleasure to Deptford and Greenwich which Paul found him- 
self compelled to attend ; and we need not refer our readers to 
novels upon fashionable life to inform them that in good soci- 
ety the gentlemen always pay for the ladies ! Nor was this all 
the expense to which his expectations exposed him. A gen- 
tleman could scarcely attend these elegant festivities without 
devoting some little attention to his dress ; and a fashionable 
tailor plays the deuce with one’s yearly allowance. 

We who reside, be it known to you, reader, in Little Brit- 
tany are not very well acquainted with the manners of the 
better classes in St. James’s. But there was one great vice 
among the fine people about Thames Court which we make no 
doubt does not exist anywhere else, — namely, these fine peo- 
ple were always in an agony to seem finer than they were; 
and the more airs a gentleman or a lady gave him or her self, 
the more important they became. Joe, the dog’s-meat man, 
had indeed got into society entirely from a knack of saying 
impertinent things to everybody; and the smartest exclusives 
1 Popular Fallacies. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


29 


of the place, who seldom visited any one where there was 
not a silver teapot, used to think Joe had a great deal 
in him because he trundled his cart with his head in the 
air, and one day gave the very beadle of the parish “the cut 
direct.” 

Now this desire to be so exceedingly fine not only made 
the society about Thames Court unpleasant, but expensive. 
Every one vied with his neighbour ; and as the spirit of riv- 
alry is particularly strong in youthful bosoms, we can scarcely 
wonder that it led Paul into many extravagances. The evil 
of all circles that profess to be select is high play ; and the 
reason is obvious : persons who have the power to bestow on 
another an advantage he covets would rather sell it than give 
it ; and Paul, gradually increasing in popularity and ton , found 
himself, in spite of his classical education, no match for the 
finished, or, rather, finishing gentlemen with whom he began 
to associate. His first admittance into the select coterie of 
these men of the world was formed at the house of Bachelor 
Bill, a person of great notoriety among that portion of the 
elite which emphatically entitles itself “Flash.” However, 
as it is our rigid intention in this work to portray at length 
no episodical characters whatsoever, we can afford our readers 
but a slight and rapid sketch of Bachelor Bill. 

This personage was of Devonshire extraction. His mother 
had kept the pleasantest public-house in town, and at her 
death Bill succeeded to her property and popularity. All the 
young ladies in the neighbourhood of Fiddler’s Row, where he 
resided, set their caps at him : all the most fashionable prigs , 
or tobymen , sought to get him into their set ; and the most crack 
blowen in London would have given her ears at any time for 
a loving word from Bachelor Bill. J>ut Bill was a long- 
headed, prudent fellow, and of a remarkably cautious tem- 
perament. He avoided marriage and friendship ; namely, he 
was neither plundered nor cornuted. He was a tall, aristo- 
cratic cove, of a devilish neat address, and very gallant, in 
an honest way, to the blowens. Like most single men, being 
very much the gentleman so far as money was concerned, 
he gave them plenty of “feeds,” and from time to time a 


30 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


very agreeable hop. His bingo 1 was unexceptionable ; and 
as for bis stark-naked , 2 it was voted the most brilliant 
thing in nature. In a very short time, by his blows-out and 
his bachelorship, — for single men always arrive at the apex 
of haut ton more easily than married, — he became the very 
glass of fashion ; and many were the tight apprentices, even 
at the west end of the town, who used to turn back in admira- 
tion of Bachelor Bill, when of a Sunday afternoon he drove 
down his varment gig to his snug little box on the borders of 
Turnham Green. BilPs happiness was not, however, wholly 
without alloy. The ladies of pleasure are always so exces- 
sively angry when a man does not make love to them, that 
there is nothing they will not say against him ; and the fair 
matrons in the vicinity of Fiddler’s Row spread all manner 
of unfounded reports against poor Bachelor Bill. By degrees, 
however, — for, as Tacitus has said, doubtless with a pro- 
phetic eye to Bachelor Bill, “the truth gains by delay,” — 
these reports began to die insensibly away; and Bill now 
waxing near to the confines of middle age, his friends com- 
fortably settled for him that he would be Bachelor Bill all his 
life. For the rest, he was an excellent fellow, — gave his 
broken victuals to the poor, professed a liberal turn of think- 
ing, and in all the quarrels among the blowens (your crack 
blowens are a quarrelsome set!) always took part with the 
weakest. Although Bill affected to be very select in his com- 
pany, he was never forgetful of his old friends; and Mrs. 
Margery Lobkins having been very good to him when he was 
a little boy in a skeleton jacket, he invariably sent her a card 
to his soirees. The good lady, however, had not of late years 
deserted her chimney-corner. Indeed, the racket of fashion- 
able life was too much for her nerves; and the invitation had 
become a customary form not expected to be acted upon, but 
not a whit the less regularly used for that reason. As Paul had 
now attained his sixteenth year, and was a fine, handsome lad, 
the dame thought he would make an excellent representative 
of the Mug’s mistress; and that, for her protege , a ball at 
Bill’s house would be no bad commencement of “Life in 


1 Brandy. 


2 Gin. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


31 


London.” Accordingly, she intimated to the Bachelor a 
wish to that effect ; and Paul received the following invita- 
tion from Bill : — 

“ Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in a quiet way on Monday 
next, and hops Mr. Paul Lobkins will be of the party. N. B. Gentle- 
men is expected to come in pumps.” 

When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill leading off the 
ball to the tune of “ Drops of Brandy,” with a young lady to 
whom, because she had been a strolling player, the Ladies 
Patronesses of Fiddler’s Bow had thought proper to behave 
with a very cavalier civility. The good Bachelor had no 
notion, as he expressed it, of such tantrums, and he caused 
it to be circulated among the finest of the blowens , that he 
expected all who kicked their heels at his house would 
behave decent and polite to young Mrs. Dot. This intima- 
tion, conveyed to the ladies with all that insinuating polish 
for which Bachelor Bill was so remarkable, produced a nota- 
ble effect; and Mrs. Dot, being now led off by the flash 
Bachelor, was overpowered with civilities the rest of the 
evening. 

When the dance was ended, Bill very politely shook hands 
with Paul, and took an early opportunity of introducing him 
to some of the most “noted characters” of the town. Among 
these were the smart Mr. Allfair, the insinuating Henry 
Finish, the merry Jack Hookey, the knowing Charles Trywit, 
and various others equally noted for their skill in living hand- 
somely upon their own brains, and the personals of other 
people. To say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest 
lad, was less charmed than he had anticipated by the conver- 
sation of these chevaliers of industry. He was more pleased 
with the clever though self-sufficient remarks of a gentleman 
with a remarkably fine head of hair, and whom we would more 
impressively than the rest introduce to our reader under the 
appellation of Mr. Edward Pepper, generally termed Long 
Ned. As this worthy was destined afterwards to be an inti- 
mate associate of Paul, our main reason for attending the 
hop at Bachelor Bill’s is to note, as the importance of the 


32 PAUL CLIFFORD. 

event deserves, the epoch of the commencement of then 
acquaintance. 

Long Ned and Paul happened to sit next to each other at 
supper, and they conversed together so amicably that Paul, 
in the hospitality of his heart, expressed a hope that he 
should see Mr. Pepper at the Mug ! 

“Mug, — Mug!” repeated Pepper, half shutting his eyes, 
with the air of a dandy about to be impertinent; ah, the 
name of a chapel, is it not? There ’s a sect called Muggleto- 
nians, I think?” 

“ As to that, ” said Paul, colouring at this insinuation against 
the Mug, “ Mrs. Lobkins has no more religion than her bet- 
ters ; but the Mug is a very excellent house, and frequented 
by the best possible company.” 

“Don’t doubt it! ” said Ned. “Remember now that I was 
once there, and saw one Dummie Dunnaker, — is not that the 
name? I recollect some years ago, when I first came out, that 
Dummie and I had an adventure together; to tell you the 
truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now. But — 
would you believe it, Mr. Paul? — this pitiful fellow was 
quite rude to me the only time I ever met him since; that is 
to say, the only time I ever entered the Mug. I have no 
notion of such airs in a merchant, — a merchant of rags ! 
Those commercial fellows are getting quite insufferable.” 

“You surprise me,” said Paul. “Poor Dummie is the last 
man to be rude; he is as civil a creature as ever lived.” 

“Or sold a rag,” said Ned. “Possibly! Don’t doubt his 
amiable qualities in the least. Pass the bingo, my good fel- 
low. Stupid stuff, this dancing! ” 

“ Devilish stupid ! ” echoed Harry Finish, across the table. 
“Suppose we adjourn to Fish Lane, and rattle the ivories! 
What say you, Mr. Lobkins?” 

Afraid of the “ton’s stern laugh, which scarce the proud 
philosopher can scorn,” and not being very partial to dancing, 
Paul assented to the proposition ; and a little party, consist- 
ing of Harry Finish, Allfair, Long Ned, and Mr. Hookey, 
adjourned to Fish Lane, where there was a club, celebrated 
among men who live by their wits, at which “lush” and 


PAUL CLIFFORD, 


33 


“baccy” were gratuitously sported in the most magnificent 
manner. Here the evening passed away very delightfully, 
and Paul went home without a “ brad ” in his pocket. 

From that time Paul’s visits to Fish Lane became unfortu- 
nately regular ; and in a very short period, we grieve to say, 
Paul became that distinguished character, a gentleman of 
three outs, — “out of pocket, out of elbows, and out of credit.” 
The only two persons whom he found willing to accommodate 
him with a slight loan , as the advertisements signed X. Y. 
have it, were Mr. Dummie Dunnaker and Mr. Pepper, sur- 
named the Long. The latter, however, while he obliged the 
heir to the Mug, never condescended to enter that noted place 
of resort 5 and the former, whenever he good-naturedly opened 
his purse-strings, did it with a hearty caution to shun the 
acquaintance of Long Ned, — “a parson,” said Dummie, “of 
wery dangerous morals, and not by no manner of means a fit 
’sociate for a young gemman of cracter like leetle Paul ! ” So 
earnest was this caution, and so especially pointed at Long 
Ned, — although the company of Mr. Allfair or Mr. Finish 
might be said to be no less prejudicial, — that it is probable 
that stately fastidiousness of manner which Lord Normanby 
rightly observes, in one of his excellent novels, makes so 
many enemies in the world, and which sometimes character- 
ized the behaviour of Long Ned, especially towards the men 
of commerce, was a main reason why Dummie was so acutely 
and peculiarly alive to the immoralities of that lengthy gen- 
tleman. At the same time we must observe that when Paul, 
rememberihg what Pepper had said respecting his early adven- 
ture with Mr. Dunnaker, repeated it to the merchant, Dummie 
could not conceal a certain confusion, though he merely re- 
marked, with a sort of laugh, that it was not worth speaking 
about; and it appeared evident to Paul that something un- 
pleasant to the man of rags, which was not shared by the 
unconscious Pepper, lurked in the reminiscence of their past 
acquaintance. Howbeit, the circumstance glided from Paul’s 
attention the moment afterwards; and he paid, we are con- 
cerned to say, equally little heed to the cautions against Ned 
with which Dummie regaled him. 


34 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Perhaps (for we must now direct a glance towards his 
domestic concerns) one great cause which drove Paul to Pish 
Lane was the uncomfortable life he led at home. For though 
Mrs. Lobkins was extremely fond of her protege , yet she was 
possessed, as her customers emphatically remarked, “of the 
devil’s own temper;” and her native coarseness never having 
been softened by those pictures of gay society which had, in 
many a novel and comic farce, refined the temperament of the 
romantic Paul, her manner of venting her maternal reproaches 
was certainly not a little revolting to a lad of some delicacy 
of feeling. Indeed, it often occurred to him to leave her 
house altogether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the man- 
ner of the ingenious Gil Bias or the enterprising Roderick 
Random; and this idea, though conquered and reconquered, 
gradually swelled and increased at his heart, even as swelleth 
that hairy ball found in the stomach of some suffering heifer 
after its decease. Among these . projects of enterprise the 
reader will hereafter notice that an early vision of the Green 
Forest Cave, in which Turpin was accustomed, with a friend, 
a ham, and a wife, to conceal himself, flitted across his mind. 
At this time he did not, perhaps, incline to the mode of life 
practised by the hero of the roads ; but he certainly clung not 
the less fondly to the notion of the cave. 

The melancholy flow of our hero’s life was now, however, 
about to be diverted by an unexpected turn, and the crude 
thoughts of boyhood to burst, “like Ghilan’s giant palm,” into 
the fruit of a manly resolution. 

Among the prominent features of Mrs. Lobkins’s mind was 
a sovereign contempt for the unsuccessful. The imprudence 
and ill-luck of Paul occasioned her as much scorn as compas- 
sion; and when for the third time within a week he stood, 
with a rueful visage and with vacant pockets, by the dame’s 
great chair, requesting an additional supply, the tides of her 
wrath swelled into overflow. 

“Look you, my kinchin cove,” said she, — and in order to 
give peculiar dignity to her aspect, she put on while she spoke 
a huge pair of tin spectacles, — “ if so be as how you goes for 
to think as how I shall go for to supply your wicious necessi- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 35 

ties, you will find yourself planted in Queer Street. Blow me 
tight, if I gives you another mag.” 

“But I owe Long Ned a guinea,” said Paul; “and Dummie 
Dunnaker lent me three crowns. It ill becomes your heir 
apparent, my dear dame, to fight shy of his debts of honour.” 

“ Taradididdle, don’t think for to wheedle me with your 
debts and your honour, ” Said the dame, in a passion. “ Long 
Ned is as long in the forks [fingers] as he is in the back; may 
Old Harry fly off with him ! And as for Dummie Dunnaker, 
I wonders how you, brought up such a swell, and blest with 
the wery best of hedications, can think of putting up with 
such wulgar ’sociates. I tells you what, Paul, you ’ll please 
to break with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you ’ll 
ever get from Peg Lobkins.” So saying, the old lady turned 
round in her chair, and helped herself to a pipe of tobacco. 

Paul walked twice up and down the apartment, and at last 
stopped opposite the dame’s chair. He was a youth of high 
spirit; and though he was warm-hearted, and had a love for 
Mrs. Lobkins, which her care and affection for him well 
deserved, yet he was rough in temper, and not constantly 
smooth in speech. It is true that his heart smote him after- 
wards, whenever he had said anything to annoy Mrs. Lobkins, 
and he was always the first to seek a reconciliation; but warm 
words produce cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not 
always efficacious in amending the future. Paul then, puffed 
up with the vanity of his genteel education, and the friend- 
ship of Long Ned (who went to Ranelagh, and wore silver 
clocked stockings), stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins’s chair, 
and said with great solemnity, — 

“ Mr. Pepper, madam, says very properly that I must have 
money to support mj’self like a gentleman; and as you won’t 
give it me, I am determined, with man}' thanks for your 
past favours, to throw myself on the world, and seek my 
fortune.” 

If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, Dame Margaret 
Lobkins, it has been seen, had no advantage on that score. 
(We dare say the reader has observed that nothing so enrages 
persons on whom one depends as any expressed determination 


86 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


of seeking independence.) Gazing therefore for one moment 
at the open but resolute countenance of Paul, while all the 
blood of her veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her 
enlarging cheeks, Dame Lobkins said, — 

“ Ifeaks, Master Pride-in-duds ! seek your fortune yourself, 
will you? This comes of my bringing you up, and letting 
you eat the bread of idleness and charity, you toad of a thou- 
sand! Take that and be d — d to you ! ”* and, suiting the 
action to the word, the tube which she had withdrawn from 
her mouth in order to utter her gentle rebuke whizzed through 
the air, grazed PauPs cheek, and finished its earthly career by 
coming in violent contact with the right eye of Dummie Dun- 
naker, who at that exact moment entered the room. 

Paul had winced for a moment to avoid the missive; in the 
next he stood perfectly upright. His cheeks glowed, his 
chest swelled; and the entrance of Dummie Dunnaker, who 
was thus made the spectator of the affront he had received, 
stirred his blood into a deeper anger and a more bitter self- 
humiliation. All his former resolutions of departure, all the 
hard words, the coarse allusions, the practical insults he had 
at any time received, rushed upon him at once. He merely 
cast one look at the old woman, whose rage was now half sub- 
sided, and turned slowly and in silence to the door. 

There is often something alarming in an occurrence merely 
because it is that which we least expect. The astute Mrs. 
Lobkins, remembering the hardy temper and fiery passions of 
Paul, had expected some burst of rage, some vehement reply; 
and when she caught with one wandering eye his parting look, 
and saw him turn so passively and mutely to the door, her 
heart misgave her, she raised herself from her chair, and 
made towards him. Unhappily for her chance of reconcilia- 
tion, she had that day quaffed more copiously of the bowl 
than usual; and the signs of intoxication visible in her uncer- 
tain gait, her meaningless eye, her vacant leer, her ruby 
cheek, all inspired Paul with feelings which at the moment 
converted resentment into something very much like aversion. 
He sprang from her grasp to the threshold. 

“Where be you going, you imp of the world?” cried the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 37 

dame. “ Get in with you, and say no more on the matter ; be 
a bob-cull, — drop the bullies, and you shall have the blunt! ” 

But Paul heeded not this invitation. 

“I will eat the bread of idleness and charity no longer,” 
said he, sullenly. “ Good-by ; and if ever I can pay you what 
I have cost you, I will.” 

He turned away as he spoke; and the dame, kindling with 
resentment at his unseemly return to her proffered kindness, 
hallooed after him, and bade that dark-coloured gentleman 
who keeps the fire-office below go along with him. 

Swelling \yith anger, pride, shame, and a half -joyous feeling 
of emancipated independence, Paul walked on, he knew not 
whither,' with his head in the air, and his legs marshalling 
themselves into a military gait of defiance. He had not pro- 
ceeded. far before he heard his name uttered behind him; he 
turned, and saw the rueful face of Dummie Dunnaker. 

Very inoffensively had that respectable person been employed 
during the last part of the scene we have described in caress- 
ing his afflicted eye, and muttering philosophical observations 
on the danger incurred by all those who are acquainted with 
ladies of a choleric temperament; when Mrs. Lobkins, turn- 
ing round after PauPs departure, and seeing the pitiful person 
of that Dummie Dunnaker, whose name she remembered Paul 
had mentioned in his opening speech, and whom, therefore, 
with an illogical confusion of ideas, she considered a party 
in the late dispute, exhausted upon him all that rage which 
it was necessary for her comfort that she should unburden 
somewhere. 

She seized the little man by the collar, — the tenderest of 
all places in gentlemen similarly circumstanced with regard 
to the ways of life, — and giving him a blow, which took 
effect on his other and hitherto undamaged eye, cried out, — 

“I’ll teach you, you blood-sucker [that is, parasite], to 
sponge upon those as has expectations ! I ’ll teach you to 
cozen the heir of the Mug, you snivelling, whey-faced ghost 
of a farthing rushlight! What! you’ll lend my Paul three 
crowns, will you, when you knows as how you told me you 
could not pay me a pitiful tizzy? Oh, you’re a queer one, I 


38 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


warrants; but you won’t queer Margery Lobkins. Out of 
my ken, you cur of the mange! — out of my ken; and if 
ever I claps my sees on you again, or if ever I knows as 
how you makes a flat of my Paul, blow me tight but I ’ll 
weave you a hempen collar, — I ’ll hang you, you dqg, I will. 
What! you will answer me, will you? Oh, you viper, budge 
and begone ! ” * 

It was in vain that Dummie protested his innocence. A 
violent coup-de-jpied broke off all further parlance. He made 
a clear house of the Mug; and the landlady thereof, tottering 
back to her elbow-chair, sought out another pipe, and, like 
all imaginative persons when the world goes wrong with them, 
consoled herself for the absence of realities by the creations of 
smoke. 

Meanwhile Dummie Dunnaker, muttering and murmuring 
bitter fancies, overtook Paul, and accused that youth of hav- 
ing been the occasion of the injuries he had just undergone. 
Paul was not at that moment in the humour best adapted for 
the patient bearing of accusations. He answered Mr. Dun- 
naker very shortly; and that respectable individual, still 
smarting under his bruises, replied with equal tartness. 
Words grew high, and at length Paul, desirous of concluding 
the conference, clenched his fist, and told the redoubted 
Dummie that he would “knock him down.” There is some- 
thing peculiarly harsh and stunning in those three hard, wiry, 
sturdy, stubborn monosyllables. Their very sound makes you 
double your fist if you are a hero, or your pace if you are a 
peaceable man. They produced an instant effect upon Dum- 
mie Dunnaker, aided as they were by the effect of an athletic 
and youthful figure, already fast approaching to the height of 
six feet, a flushed cheek, and an eye that bespoke both passion 
and resolution. The rag-merchant’s voice sank at once, and 
with the countenance of a wronged Cassius he whimpered 
forth, — 

“Knock me down? 0 leetle Paul, vot vicked vhids are 
those! Yot! Dummie Dunnaker, as has dandled you on his 
knee rnony ’s a time and oft ! Yy, the cove’s ’art is as ’ard 
as junk, and as proud as a gardener’s dog vith a nosegay tied 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


39 


to his tail.” This pathetic remonstrance softened PauPs 
anger. 

“ Well, Dummie,” said he, laughing, “I did not mean to 
hurt you, and there ’s an end of it; and I am ver^ sorry for 
the dame’s ill-conduct; and so I wish you a good-morning.” 

“Vy, vere be you trotting to, leetle Paul?” said Dummie, 
grasping him by the tail of the coat. 

“The deuce a bit I know,” answered our hero; “but I think 
I shall drop a call on Long Ned.” 

“Avast there!” said Dummie, speaking under his breath; 
“ if so be as you von’t blab, I ’ll tell you a bit of a secret. I 
heered as ’ow Long Ned started for Hampshire this werry 
morning on a toby consarn! ” 1 

“Ha! ” said Paul, “then hang me if I know what to do! ” 
As he uttered these words, a more thorough sense of his 
destitution (if he persevered in leaving the Mug) than he had 
hitherto felt rushed upon him ; for Paul had designed for a 
while to throw himself on the hospitality of his Patagonian 
friend, and now that he found that friend was absent from 
London and on so dangerous an expedition, he was a little 
puzzled what to do with that treasure of intellect and wisdom 
which he carried about upon his legs. Already he had 
acquired sufficient penetration (for Charles Trywit and Harry 
Finish were excellent masters for initiating a man into the 
knowledge of the world) to perceive that a person, however 
admirable may be his qualities, does not readily find a wel- 
come without a penny in his pocket. In the neighbourhood 
of Thames Court he had, indeed, many acquaintances ; but the 
fineness of his language, acquired from, his education, and the 
elegance of his air, in which he attempted to blend in happy 
association the gallant effrontery of Mr. Long Ned with the 
graceful negligence of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, had made 
him many enemies among those acquaintances; and he was 
not willing — so great was our hero’s pride — to throw him- 
self on the chance of their welcome, or to publish, as it were, 
his exiled and crestfallen state. As for those boon compan- 
ions who had assisted him in making a wilderness of hxs 

1 Highway expedition. 


40 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


pockets, he had already found that that was the only species 
of assistance which they were willing to render him. In a 
word, he could not for the life of him conjecture in what 
quarter he should find the benefits of bed and board. While 
he stood with his finger to his lip, undecided and musing, but 
fully resolved at least on one thing, — not to return to the 
Mug, — little Dummie, who was a good-natured fellow at the 
bottom, peered up in his face, and said, — 

“Vy, Paul, my kid, you looks down in the chops; cheer up, 
— care killed a cat! ” 

Observing that this appropriate and encouraging fact of 
natural history did not lessen the cloud upon Paul’s brow, the 
acute Dummie Dunnaker proceeded at once to the grand pan- 
acea for all evils, in his own profound estimation. 

“Paul, my ben cull,” said he, with a knowing wink, and 
nudging the young gentleman in the left side, “vot do you 
say to a drop o’ blue ruin? or, as you likes to be conish [gen- 
teel], I does n’t care if I sports you a glass of port! ” While 
Dunnaker was uttering this invitation, a sudden reminiscence 
flashed across Paul : he bethought him at once of MacGrawler; 
and he resolved forthwith to repair to the abode of that illus- 
trious sage, and petition at least for accommodation for the 
approaching night. So soon as he had come to this deter- 
mination, he shook off the grasp of the amiable Dummie, and 
refusing with many thanks his hospitable invitation, re- 
quested him to abstract from the dame’s house, and lodge 
within his own until called for, such articles of linen and 
clothing as belonged to Paul and could easily be laid hold of, 
during one of the matron’s evening siestas , by the shrewd 
Dunnaker. The merchant promised that the commission 
should be speedily executed; and Paul, shaking hands with 
him, proceeded to the mansion of MacGrawler. 

We must now go back somewhat in the natural course of our 
narrative, and observe that among the minor causes which 
had conspired with the great one of gambling to bring our 
excellent Paul to his present situation, was his intimacy with 
MacGrawler; for when Paul’s increasing years and roving 
habits had put an end to the sage’s instructions, there was 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


41 


thereby lopped off from the preceptor’s finances the weekly 
sum of two shillings and sixpence, as well as the freedom of 
the dame’s cellar and larder; and as, in the reaction of feel- 
ing, and the perverse course of human affairs, people generally 
repent the most of those actions once the most ardently in- 
curred, so poor Mrs. Lobkins, imagining that Paul’s irregu- 
larities were entirely owing to the knowledge he had acquired 
from MacGrawler’s instructions, grievously upbraided herself 
for her former folly in seeking for a superior education for her 
protege ; nay, she even vented upon the sacred head of MacGraw- 
ler himself her dissatisfaction at the results of his instruc- 
tions. In like manner, when a man who can spell comes to be 
hanged, the anti-educationists accuse the spelling-book of his 
murder. High words between the admirer of ignorant inno- 
cence and the propagator of intellectual science ensued, which 
ended in MacGrawler’s final expulsion from the Mug. 

There are some young gentlemen of the present day addicted 
to the adoption of Lord Byron’s poetrjq with the alteration 
of new rhymes, who are pleased graciously to inform us that 
they are born to be the ruin of all those who love them, ■ — an 
interesting fact, doubtless, but which they might as well keep 
to themselves. It would seem by the contents of this chapter 
as if the same misfortune were destined to Paul. The exile 
of MacGrawler, the insults offered to Dummie Dunnaker, — 
alike occasioned by him, — appear to sanction that opinion. 
Unfortunately, though Paul was a poet, he was not much of a 
sentimentalist; and he has never given us the edifying ravings 
of his remorse on those subjects. But MacGrawler, like 
Dunnaker, was resolved that our hero should perceive the 
curse of his fatality; and as he still retained some influence 
over the mind of his quondam pupil, his accusations against 
Paul, as the origin of his banishment, were attended with a 
greater success than were the complaints of Dummie Dun- 
naker on a similar calamity. Paul, who, like most people 
who are good for nothing, had an excellent heart, was exceed- 
ingly grieved at MacGrawler’s banishment on his account; and 
he endeavoured to atone for it by such pecuniary consolations 
as he was enabled to offer. These MacGrawler (purely, we 


42 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


may suppose, from a benevolent desire to lessen the boy’s 
remorse) scrupled not to accept; and thus, so similar often 
are the effects of virtue and of vice, the exemplary Mac- 
Grawler conspired with the unprincipled Long Ned and the 
heartless Henry Finish in producing that unenviable state of 
vacuity which now saddened over the pockets of Paul. 

As our hero was slowly walking towards the sage’s abode, 
depending on his gratitude and friendship for a temporary 
shelter, one of those lightning flashes of thought which often 
illumine the profoundest abyss of affliction darted across his 
mind. Recalling the image of the critic, he remembered that 
he had seen that ornament of “ The Asinaeum ” receive sundry 
sums for his critical lucubrations. 

“ Why,” said Paul, seizing on that fact, and stopping short 
in the street, — “ why should I not turn critic myself? ” 

The only person to whom one ever puts a question with a 
tolerable certainty of receiving a satisfactory answer is one’s 
self. The moment Paul started this luminous suggestion, it 
appeared to him that he had discovered the mines of Potosi. 
Burning with impatience to discuss with the great MacGraw- 
ler the feasibility of his project, he quickened his pace almost 
into a run, and in a very few minutes, having only overthrown 
one chimney-sweeper and two apple-women by the way, he 
arrived at the sage’s door. 


CHAPTER Y. 

Ye realms yet unrevealed to human sight, 

Ye canes athwart the hapless hands that write, 

Ye critic chiefs, — permit me to relate 
The mystic wonders of your silent state ! 

Virgil, ^Eneid, book vi. 

Fortune had smiled upon Mr. MacGrawler since he first 
undertook the tuition of Mrs. Lobkins’s protegJ. He now in* 
habited a second-floor, and defied the sheriff and his evil 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 4o 

spirits. It was at the dusk of evening that Paul found him at 
home and alone. 

Before the mighty man stood a pot of London porter; a 
candle, with an unregarded wick, shed its solitary light upon 
his labours ; and an infant cat played sportively at his learned 
feet, beguiling the weary moments with the remnants of the 
spiral cap wherewith, instead of laurel, the critic had hitherto 
nightly adorned his brows. 

So soon as MacGrawler, piercing through the gloomy mist 
which hung about the chamber, perceived the person of the 
intruder, a frown settled upon his ( brow. 

“Have I not told you, youngster,” he growled, “never to 
enter a gentleman’s room without knocking? I tell you, sir, 
that manners are no less essential to human happiness than 
virtue; wherefore, never disturb a gentleman in his avoca- 
tions, and sit yourself down without molesting the cat! ” 

Paul, who knew that his respected tutor disliked any one 
to trace the source of the wonderful spirit which he infused 
into his critical compositions, affected not to perceive the pew- 
ter Hippocrene, and with many apologies for his want of pre- 
paratory politeness, seated himself as directed. It was then 
that the following edifying conversation ensued. 

“The ancients,” quoth Paul, “were very great men, Mr. 
MacGrawler.” 

“They were so, sir,” returned the critic; “we make it a 
rule in our profession to assert that fact.” 

“But, sir,” said Paul, “they were wrong now and then.” 

“Never, Ignoramus; never!” 

“ They praised poverty, Mr. MacGrawler ! ” said Paul, with 
a sigh. 

“Hem!” quoth the critic, a little staggered; but presently 
recovering his characteristic acumen, he observed, “ It is true, 
Paul; but that was the poverty of other people.” 

There was a slight pause. “Criticism,” renewed Paul, 
“must be a most difficult art.” 

“ A-hem ! And what art is there, sir, that is not difficult, 
— at least, to become master of?” 

“ True, ” sighed Paul ; “ or else — ” 


44 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Or else what, boy?” repeated Mr. MacGrawler, seeing 
that Paul hesitated, either from fear of his superior knowl- 
edge, as the critic’s vanity suggested, or from (what was 
equally likely) want of a word to express his meaning. 

“Why, I was thinking, sir,” said Paul, with that des- 
perate courage which gives a distinct and loud intonation to 
the voice of all who set, or think they set, their fate upon a 
cast, — “I was thinking that I should like to become a critic 
myself ! ” 

“W-h-e-w!” whistled MacGrawler, elevating his eye- 
brows ; “ w-h-e-w ! great ends have come of less beginnings ! ” 

Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it did from 
the lips of so great a man and so great a critic, at the very 
moment too when nothing short of an anathema against arro- 
gance and presumption was expected to issue from those 
portals of wisdom, yet such is the fallacy of all human 
hopes, that Paul’s of a surety would have been a little less 
elated, had he, at the same time his ears drank in the balm 
of these gracious words, been able to have dived into the 
source whence they emanated. 

“Know thyself!” was a precept the sage MacGrawler had 
endeavoured to obey ; consequently the result of his obedience 
was that even by himself he was better known than trusted. 
Whatever he might appear to others, he had in reality no 
vain faith in the infallibility of his own talents and resources; 
as well might a butcher deem himself a perfect anatomist from 
the frequent amputation of legs of mutton, as the critic of 
“ The Asinseum ” have laid “ the flattering unction to his soul ” 
that he was really skilled in the art of criticism, or even 
acquainted with one of its commonest rules, because he could 
with all speed cut up and disjoint any work, from the small- 
est to the greatest, from the most superficial to the most supe^ 
rior; and thus it was that he never had the want of candour 
to deceive himself as to his own talents. Paul’s wish there- 
fore was no sooner expressed than a vague but golden scheme 
of future profit illumined the brain of MacGrawler, — in a 
word, he resolved that Paul should henceforward share the 
labour of his critiques; and that he, MacGrawler, should 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 45 

receive the whole profits in return for the honour thereby 
conferred on his coadjutor. 

Looking therefore at our hero with a benignant air, Mr. 
MacGrawler thus continued : — 

“Yes, I repeat, — great ends have come from less begin- 
nings ! Rome was not built in a day ; and I, Paul, I myseli 
was not always the editor of ‘The Asinmum.’ You say 
wisely, criticism is a great science, a very great science ; and 
it may be divided into three branches, — namely, ‘ to tickle, 
to slash, and to plaster.’ In each of these three I believe 
without vanity I am a profound adept! I will initiate you 
into all. Your labours shall begin this very evening. I have 
three works on my table; they must be despatched by to- 
morrow night. I will take the most arduous; I abandon to 
you the others. The three consist of a Romance, an Epic in 
twelve books, and an Inquiry into the Human Mind, in three 
volumes. I, Paul, will tickle the Romance; you this very 
evening shall plaster the Epic, and slash the Inquiry ! ” 

“ Heavens, Mr. MacGrawler ! ” cried Paul, in consternation, 
“what do you mean? I should never be able to read an epic 
in twelve books, and I should fall asleep in the first page of 
the Inquiry. Ho, no, leave me the Romance, and take the 
other two under your own protection ! ” 

Although great genius is always benevolent, Mr. Mac- 
Grawler could not restrain a smile of ineffable contempt at 
the simplicity of his pupil. 

? ‘Know, young gentleman,” said he, solemnly, “that the 
Romance in question must be tickled; it is not given to raw 
beginners to conquer that great mystery of our science.” 

“Before we proceed further, explain the words of the art,” 
said Paul, impatiently. 

“Listen, then,” rejoined MacGrawler; and as he spoke, the 
candle cast an awful glimmering on his countenance. “To 
slash is, speaking grammatically, to employ the accusative, or 
accusing case; you must cut up your book right and left, top 
and bottom, root and branch. To plaster a book is to employ 
the dative, or giving case; and you must bestow on the work 
all the superlatives in the language, — you must lay on your 


46 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


praise thick and thin, and not leave a crevice untrowelled. 
But to tickle, sir, is a comprehensive word, and it comprises 
all the infinite varieties that fill the interval between slashing 
and plastering. This is the nicety of the art, and you can 
only acquire it by practice; a few examples will suffice to 
give you an idea of its delicacy. 

“We will begin with the encouraging tickle: ‘Although 
this work is full of faults, — though the characters are unnat- 
ural, the plot utterly improbable, the thoughts hackneyed, and 
the style ungrammatical, — yet we would by no means dis- 
courage the author from proceeding; and in the mean while 
we confidently recommend his work to the attention of the 
reading public.” 

“ Take, now, the advising tickle : 4 There is a good deal of 
merit in these little volumes, although we must regret the 
evident haste in which they were written. The author might 
do better, — we recommend him a study of the best writers; ’ 
then conclude by a Latin quotation, which you may take from 
one of the mottoes in the 4 Spectator. ’ 

“Now, young gentleman, for a specimen of the metaphorical 
tickle: 4 We beg this poetical aspirant to remember the fate of 
Pyrenseus, who, attempting to pursue the Muses, forgot that 
he had not the wings of the goddesses, flung himself from the 
loftiest ascent he could reach, and perished.’ 

“This you see, Paul, is a loftier and more erudite sort of 
tickle, and may be reserved for one of the Quarterly Reviews. 
Never throw away a simile unnecessarily. 

“Now for a sample of the facetious tickle: 4 Mr. has 

obtained a considerable reputation! Some fine ladies think 
him a great philosopher, and he has been praised in our hear- 
ing by some Cambridge Fellows for his knowledge of fashion- 
able society.’ 

“For this sort of tickle we generally use the dullest of our 
tribe; and I have selected the foregoing example from the 
criticisms of a distinguished writer in 4 The Asinseum, ’ whom 
we call, par excellence , the Ass. 

“ There is a variety of other tickles, —the familiar, the 
vulgar, the polite, the good-natured, the bitter; but in gen- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


47 


eral all tickles may be supposed to signify, however disguised, 
one or other of these meanings: ‘ This book would be exceed- 
ingly good if it were not exceedingly bad;’ or, ‘this book 
would be exceedingly bad if it were not exceedingly good.’ 

“You have now, Paul, a general idea of the superior art 
required by the tickle?” 

Our hero signified his assent by a sort of hysterical sound 
between a laugh and a groan. MacGrawler continued: — 

“There is another grand difficulty attendant on this class 
of criticism, — it is generally requisite to read a few pages of 
the work; because we seldom tickle without extracting, and 
it requires some judgment to make the context agree with the 
extract. But it is not often necessary to extract when you 
slash or when you plaster; when you slash, it is better in 
general to conclude with : ‘ After what we have said, it is 
unnecessary to add that we cannot offend the taste of our 
readers by any quotation from this execrable trash.’ And 
when you plaster, you may wind up with: ‘We regret that 
our limits will not allow us to give any extracts from this 
wonderful and unrivalled work. We must refer our readers 
to the book itself.’ 

“ And now, sir, I think I have given you a sufficient outline of 
the noble science of Scaliger and MacGrawler. Doubtless you 
are reconciled to the task I have allotted you ; and while I tickle 
the Romance, you will slash the Inquiry and plaster the Epic ! ” 

“I will do my best, sir!” said Paul, with that modest yet 
noble simplicity which becomes the virtuously ambitious; 
and MacGrawler forthwith gave him pen and paper, and set 
him down to his undertaking. 

He had the good fortune to please MacGrawler, who, after 
having made a few corrections in style, declared he evinced a 
peculiar genius in that branch of composition. And then it 
was that Paul, made conceited by praise, said, looking con- 
temptuously in the face of his preceptor, and swinging his 
legs to and fro, — 

“And what, sir, shall I receive for the plastered Epic and 
the slashed Inquiry ? ” 

As the face of the school-boy who, when guessing, as he 


48 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


thinks rightly, at the meaning of some mysterious word in 
Cornelius Nepos, receiveth not the sugared epithet of praise, 
but a sudden stroke across the os humerosve, 1 even so, blank, 
puzzled, and thunderstricken, waxed the face of Mr. Mac- 
Grawler at the abrupt and astounding audacity of Paul. 

“ Receive ! ” he repeated, — “ receive ! Why, you impudent, 
ungrateful puppy, would you steal the bread from your old 
master? If I can obtain for your crude articles an admission 
into the illustrious pages of ‘ The Asinseum , 9 will you not be 
sufficiently paid, sir, by the honour? Answer me that. Another 
man, young gentleman, would have charged you a premium 
for his instructions ; and here have I, in one lesson, imparted 
to you all the mysteries of the science, and for nothing! And 
you talk to me of ‘ receive! — receive ! 9 Young gentleman, in 
the words of the immortal bard, ‘ I would as lief you had 
talked to me of ratsbane! ’ 99 

“In fine, then, Mr. MacGrawler, I shall get nothing for 
my trouble?” said Paul. 

“To be sure not, sir; the very best writer in ‘The Asi- 
naeum 9 only gets three shillings an article!” Almost more 
than he deserves, the critic might have added; for he who 
writes for nobody should receive nothing! 

“Then, sir,” quoth the mercenary Paul, profanely, and 
rising, he kicked with one kick the cat, the Epic, and the 
Inquiry to the other end of the room, — “then, sir, you may 
all go to the devil ! ” 

We do not, 0 gentle reader! seek to excuse this hasty 
anathema. The habits of childhood will sometimes break 
forth despite of the after blessings of education; and we set 
not up Paul for thine imitation as that model of virtue and of 
wisdom which we design thee to discover in MacGrawler. 

When that great critic perceived Paul had risen and was 
retreating in high dudgeon towards the door, he rose also, 
and repeating Paul’s last words, said, — 

‘“Go to the devil ! 1 Not so quick, young gentleman, — 
festina lente , — all in good time. What though I did, aston- 
ished at your premature request, say that you should receive 
1 “ Face or shoulders.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


49 


nothing; yet my great love for you may induce me to bestir 
myself on your behalf. s The Asinseum, ’ it is true, only gives 
three shillings an article in general ; but I am its editor, and 
will intercede with the proprietors on your behalf. Yes, yes; 
I will see what is to be done. Stop a bit, my boy.” 

Paul, though very irascible, was easily pacified; he reseated 
himself, and taking MacGrawler’s hand, said, — 

“Forgive me for my petulance, my dear sir; but, to tell 
you the honest truth, I am very low in the world just at 
present, and must get money in some way or another, — in 
short, I must either pick pockets or write (not gratuitously) 
for 1 The Asinseum. ’ ” 

And without further preliminary Paul related his present 
circumstances to the critic, declared his determination not to 
return to the Mug, and requested, at least, from the friend- 
ship of his old preceptor the accommodation of shelter for 
that night. 

MacGrawler was exceedingly disconcerted at hearing so 
bad an account of his pupiPs finances as well as prospects, 
for he had secretly intended to regale himself that evening 
with a bowl of punch, for which he purposed that Paul should 
pay; but as he knew the quickness of parts possessed by the 
young gentleman, as also the great affection entertained for 
him by Mrs. Lobkins, who in all probability would solicit his 
return the next day, he thought it not unlikely that Paul would 
enjoy the same good fortune as that presiding over his feline 
companion, which, though it had just been kicked to the other 
end of the apartment, was now resuming its former occupation, 
unhurt, and no less merrily than before. He therefore 
thought it would be imprudent to discard his quondam pupil, 
despite of his present poverty; and, moreover, although the 
first happy project of pocketing all the profits derivable from 
Paul’s industry was now abandoned, he still perceived great 
facility in pocketing a part of the same receipts. He there- 
fore answered Paul very warmly, that he fully sympathized 
with him in his present melancholy situation; that, so far as 
he was concerned, he would share his last shilling with his 
beloved pupil, but that he regretted at that moment he had 

4 


50 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


only elevenpence halfpenny in his pocket; that he would, 
however, exert himself to the utmost in procuring an opening 
for Paul’s literary genius; and that, if Paul liked to take the 
slashing and plastering part of the business on himself, he 
would willingly surrender it to him, and give him all the 
profits whatever they might be. En attendant , he regretted 
that a violent rheumatism prevented his giving up his own 
bed to his pupil, but that he might, with all the pleasure 
imaginable, sleep upon the rug before the fire. Paul was so 
affected by this kindness in the worthy man, that, though not 
much addicted to the melting mood, he shed tears of grati- 
tude. He insisted, however, on not receiving the whole 
reward of his labours; and at length it was settled, though 
with a noble reluctance on the part of MacGrawler, that it 
should be equally shared between the critic and the critic’s 
prottg6, — the half profits being reasonably awarded to Mac- 
Grawler for his instructions and his recommendation. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Bad events peep out o’ the tail of good purposes. — Bartholomew Fair. 

It was not long before there was a visible improvement in 
the pages of “The Asinseum.” The slashing part of that 
incomparable journal was suddenly conceived and carried on 
with a vigour and spirit which astonished the hallowed few 
who contributed to its circulation. It was not difficult to see 
that a new soldier had been enlisted in the service ; there was 
something so fresh and hearty about the abuse that it could 
never have proceeded from the worn-out acerbity of an old 
slasher. To be sure, a little ignorance of ordinary facts, and 
an innovating method of applying words to meanings which 
they never were meant to denote, were now and then distin- 
guishable in the criticisms of the new Achilles ; nevertheless, 
it was easy to attribute these peculiarities to an original turn 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


51 


of thinking ; and the rise of the paper on the appearance of a 
series of articles upon contemporary authors, written by this 
“eminent hand,” was so remarkable that fifty copies — a num- 
ber perfectly unprecedented in the annals of “The Asinseum” 
were absolutely sold in one week; indeed, remembering the 
principle on which it was founded, one sturdy old writer 
declared that the journal would soon do for itself and become 
popular. There was a remarkable peculiarity about the lit- 
erary debutant who signed himself “Nobilitas:” he not only 
put old words to a new sense, but he used words which had 
never, among the general run of writers, been used before. 
This was especially remarkable in the application of hard 
names to authors. Once, in censuring a popular writer for 
pleasing the public and thereby growing rich, the “eminent 
hand” ended with “He who surreptitiously accumulates 
bustle 1 is, in fact, nothing better than a buzz gloak ! ” 2 

These enigmatical words and recondite phrases imparted a 
great air of learning to the style of the new critic ; and from 
the unintelligible sublimity of his diction, it seemed doubt- 
ful whether he was a poet from Highgate or a philosopher 
from Konigsberg. At all events, the reviewer preserved his 
incognito, and while his praises were rung at no less than 
three tea-tables, even glory appeared to him less delicious 
than disguise. 

In this incognito, reader, thou hast already discovered 
Paul ; and now we have to delight thee with a piece of unex- 
ampled morality in the excellent MacGrawler. That worthy 
Mentor, perceiving that there was an inherent turn for dissi- 
pation and extravagance in our hero, resolved magnanimously 
rather to bring upon himself the sins of treachery and malap- 
propriation than suffer his friend and former pupil to incur 
those of wastefulness and profusion. Contrary therefore to 
the agreement made with Paul, instead of giving that youth 
the half of those profits consequent on his brilliant lucubra- 
tions, he imparted to him only one fourth, and, with the utmost 
tenderness for Paul’s salvation, applied the other three por- 
tions of the same to his own necessities. The best actions 


1 Money. 


Pickpocket. 


52 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


are, alas! often misconstrued in this world; and we are now 
about to record a remarkable instance of that melancholy 
truth. 

One evening MacGrawler, having “ moistened his virtue ” in 
the same manner that the great Cato is said to have done, in 
the confusion which such a process sometimes occasions in the 
best regulated heads, gave Paul what appeared to him the out- 
line of a certain article which he wished to be slashingly filled 
up, but what in reality was the following note from the editor 
of a monthly periodical : — 


Sir, — Understanding that my friend, Mr. , proprietor of “ The 

Asinaeum,” allows the very distinguished writer whom you have intro- 
duced to the literary world, and who signs himself “ Nobilitas,” only five 
shillings an article, I beg, through you, to tender him double that sum. 
The article required will be of an ordinary length. 

I am, sir, etc., 


Now, that very morning, MacGrawler had informed Paul of 
this offer, altering only, from the amiable motives we have 
already explained, the sum of ten shillings to that of four; 
and no sooner did Paul read the communication we have 
placed before the reader than, instead of gratitude to Mac- 
Grawler for his consideration of Paul’s moral infirmities, he 
conceived against that gentleman the most bitter resentment. 
He did not, however, vent his feelings at once upon the Scots- 
man, — indeed, at that moment, as the sage was in a deep 
sleep under the table, it would have been to no purpose had 
he unbridled his indignation, — but he resolved without loss 
of time to quit the abode of the critic. “And, indeed,” said 
he, soliloquizing, “ I am heartily tired of this life, and shall 
be very glad to seek some other employment. Fortunately, I 
have hoarded up five guineas and four shillings; and with 
that independence in my possession, since I have forsworn 
gambling, I cannot easily starve.” 

To this soliloquy succeeded a misanthropical revery upon 
the faithlessness of friends; and the meditation ended in 
Paul’s making up a little bundle of such clothes, etc., as 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


53 


Dummie had succeeded in removing from the Mug, and which 
Paul had taken from the rag-merchant’s abode one morning 
when Dummie was abroad. 

When this easy task was concluded, Paul wrote a short and 
upbraiding note to his illustrious preceptor, and left it un- 
sealed on the table. He then, upsetting the ink-bottle on 
MacGrawler’s sleeping countenance, departed from the house, 
and strolled away he cared not whither. 

The evening was gradually closing as Paul, chewing the 
cud of his bitter fancies, found himself on London Bridge. 
He paused there, and leaning over the bridge, gazed wist- 
fully on the gloomy waters that rolled onward, caring not a 
minnow for the numerous charming young ladies who have 
thought proper to drown themselves in those merciless waves, 
thereby depriving many a good mistress of an excellent house- 
maid or an invaluable cook, and many a treacherous Phaon of 
letters beginning with “Parjured Villen,” and ending with 
“Your affectionot but molancolly Molly.” 

While thus musing, he was suddenly accosted by a gentle- 
man in boots and spurs, having a riding-whip in one hand, 
and the other hand stuck in the pocket of his inexpressibles. 
The hat of the gallant was gracefully and carefully put on, 
so as to derange as little as possible a profusion of dark curls, 
which, streaming with unguents, fell low not only on either 
side of the face, but on the neck and even the shoulders of 
the owner. The face was saturnine and strongly marked, but 
handsome and striking. There was a mixture of frippery and 
sternness in its expression, — something between Madame 
Vestris and T. P. Cooke, or between “lovely Sally” and a 
“Captain bold of Halifax.” The stature of this personage 
was remarkably tall, and his figure was stout, muscular, and 
well knit. In fine, to complete his portrait, and give our 
readers of the present day an exact idea of this hero of the 
past, we shall add that he was altogether that sort of gentle- 
man one sees swaggering in the Burlington Arcade, with his 
hair and hat on one side, and a military cloak thrown over 
his shoulders; or prowling in Regent Street, towards the 
evening, whiskered and cigarred. 


64 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Laying his hand on the shoulder of our hero, this gentle- 
man said, with an affected intonation of voice, — 

“How dost, my fine fellow? Long since I saw you! 
Damme, but you look the worse for wear. What hast thou 
been doing with thyself?” 

“ Ha ! ” cried our hero, returning the salutation of the 
stranger, “and is it Long Ned whom I behold? I am indeed 
glad to meet you; and I say, my friend, I hope what I heard 
of you is not true ! ” 

“Hist! ” said Long Ned, looking round fearfully, and sink- 
ing his voice; “never talk of what you hear of gentlemen, 
except you wish to bring them to their last dying speech and 
confession. But come with me, my lad; there is a tavern 
hard by, and we may as well discuss matters over a pint of 
wine. You look cursed seedy, to be sure; but I can tell Bill 
the waiter — famous fellow, that Bill ! — that you are one of 
my tenants, come to complain of my steward, who has just 
distrained you for rent, you dog! No wonder you look so 
worn in the rigging. Come, follow me. I can’t walk with 
thee. It would look too like Northumberland House and the 
butcher’s abode next door taking a stroll together.” 

“ Really, Mr. Pepper, ” said our hero, colouring, and by no 
means pleased with the ingenious comparison of his friend, 
“if you are ashamed of my clothes, which I own might be 
newer, I will not wound you with my — ” 

“Pooh! my lad, pooh! ” cried Long Ned, interrupting him; 
“never take offence. 1 never do. I never take anything but 
money, except, indeed, watches. I don’t mean to hurt your 
feelings; all of us have been poor once. ’Gad, I remember 
when I had not a dud to my back ; and now, you see me, — 
you see me, Paul ! But come, ’t is only through the streets you 
need separate from me. Keep a little behind, very little; 
that will do. Ay, that will do,” repeated Long Ned, mutter- 
ingly to himself; “they ’ll take him for a bailiff. It looks 
handsome nowadays to be so attended; it shows one had 
credit once!” 

Meanwhile Paul, though by no means pleased with the 
contempt expressed for his personal appearance by his lengthy 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


55 


associate, and impressed with a keener sense than ever of the 
crimes of his coat and the vices of his other garment, — “ Oh, 
breathe not its name ! ” — followed doggedly and sullenly the 
strutting steps of the coxcombical Mr. Pepper. That person- 
age arrived at last at a small tavern, and arresting a waiter 
who was running across the passage into the coffee-room with 
a dish of hung-beef, demanded (no doubt from a pleasing anti- 
cipation of a similar pendulous catastrophe) a plate of the 
same excellent cheer, to be carried, in company with a bottle 
of port, into a private apartment. No sooner did he find him- 
self alone with Paul than, bursting into a loud laugh, Mr. 
Ned surveyed his comrade from head to foot through an eye- 
glass which he wore fastened to his button-hole by a piece of 
blue ribbon. 

“Well, ’gad now,” said he, stopping ever and anon, as if 
to laugh the more heartily, “stab my vitals, but you are a 
comical quiz. I wonder what the women would say, if they 
saw the dashing Edward Pepper, Esquire, walking arm in 
arm with thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall! Nay, man, never 
be downcast; if I laugh at thee, it is only to make thee look 
a little merrier thyself. Why, thou lookest like a book of 
my grandfather’s called Burton’s ‘Anatomy of Melancholy;’ 
and faith, a shabbier bound copy of it I never saw.” 

“These jests are a little hard,” said Paul, struggling 
between anger and an attempt to smile; and then recollect- 
ing his late literary occupations, and the many extracts he 
had taken from “Gleanings of the Belles Lettres,” in order to 
impart elegance to his criticisms, he threw out his hand theat- 
rically, and spouted with a solemn face, — 

“ ‘ Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, 

Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest ! ’ ” 

“ Well, now, prithee forgive me,” said Long Ned, compos- 
ing his features, “ and just tell me what you have been doing 
the last two months.” 

“Slashing and plastering! ” said Paul, with conscious pride. 

“Slashing and what? The boy’s mad. What do you 
mean, Paul?” 


56 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“In other words,” said onr hero, speaking very slowly, 
“know, 0 very Long Ned! that I have been critic to ‘ The 
Asinseum.’ ” 

If Paul’s comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten 
times more merrily than ever. He threw his full length of 
limb upon a neighbouring sofa, and literally rolled with 
cachinnatory convulsions; nor did his risible emotions sub- 
side until the entrance of the hung-beef restored him to recol- 
lection. Seeing, then, that a cloud lowered over Paul’s 
countenance, he went up to him with something like gravity, 
begged his pardon for his want of politeness, and desired him 
to wash away all unkindness in a bumper of port. Paul, 
whose excellent dispositions we have before had occasion to 
remark, was not impervious to his friend’s apologies. He 
assured Long Ned that he quite forgave him for his ridicule 
of the high situation he (Paul) had enjoyed in the literary 
world ; that it was the duty of a public censor to bear no mal- 
ice, and that he should be very glad to take his share in the 
interment of the hung-beef: 

The pair now sat down to their repast; and Paul, who had 
fared but meagrely in that Temple of Athena over which Mac- 
Grawler presided, did ample justice to the viands before him. 
By degrees, as he ate and drank, his heart opened to his com- 
panion; and laying aside that Asinseum dignity which he had 
at first thought it incumbent on him to assume, he entertained 
Pepper with all the particulars of the life he had lately passed. 
He narrated to him his breach with Dame Lobkins, his agree- 
ment with MacGrawler, the glory he had acquired, and the 
wrongs he had sustained; and he concluded, as now the second 
bottle made its appearance, by stating his desire of exchang- 
ing for some more active profession that sedentary career 
which he had so promisingly begun. 

This last part of Paul’s confessions secretly delighted the 
soul of Long Ned; for that experienced collector of the high- 
ways — Ned was, indeed, of no less noble a profession — had 
long fixed an eye upon our hero, as one whom he thought 
likely to be an honour to that enterprising calling which he 
espoused, and an useful assistant to himself. He had not, in 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


57 


his earlier acquaintance with Paul, when the youth was under 
the roof and the surveillance of the practised and wary Mrs. 
Lobkins, deemed it prudent to expose the exact nature of his 
own pursuits, and had contented himself by gradually ripen- 
ing the mind and the finances of Paul into that state when 
the proposition of a leap from a hedge would not be likely 
greatly to revolt the person to whom it was made. He now 
thought that time near at hand; and filling our hero’s glass 
up to the brim, thus artfully addressed him : — 

“ Courage, my friend! Your narration has given me a 
sensible pleasure; for curse me if it has not strengthened 
my favourite opinion, — that everything is for the best. If 
it had not been for the meanness of that pitiful fellow, Mac- 
Grawler, you might still be inspired with the paltry ambition 
of earning a few shillings a week and vilifying a parcel of 
poor devils in the what-d’ye-call it, with a hard name; 
whereas now, my good Paul, I trust I shall be able to open 
to your genius a new career, in which guineas are had for the 
asking, — in which you may wear fine clothes, and ogle the 
ladies at Ranelagh; and when you are tired of glory and lib- 
erty, Paul, why, you have only to make your bow to an heir- 
ess, or a widow with a spanking jointure, and quit the hum 
of men like a Cincinnatus ! ” 

Though Paul’s perception into the abstruser branches of 
morals was not very acute, — and at that time the port wine 
had considerably confused the few notions he possessed upon 
“the beauty of virtue,” — yet he could not but perceive that 
Mr. Pepper’s insinuated proposition was far from being one 
which the bench of bishops or a synod of moralists would 
conscientiously have approved. He consequently remained 
silent; and Long Ned, after a pause, continued: — 

“You know my genealogy, my good fellow? I was the son 
of Lawyer Pepper, a shrewd old dog, but as hot as Calcutta; 
and the grandson of Sexton Pepper, a great author, who wrote 
verses on tombstones, and kept a stall of religious tracts in 
Carlisle. My grandfather, the sexton, was the best temper 
of the family; for all of us are a little inclined to be hot in 
the mouth. Well, my fine fellow, my father left me his bless- 


58 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


ing, and this devilish good head of hair. I lived for some 
years on my own resources. I found it a particularly incon- 
venient mode of life, and of late I have taken to live on the 
public. My father and grandfather did it before me, though 
in a different line. ’T is the pleasantest plan in the world. 
Follow my example, and your coat shall be as spruce as my 
own. Master Paul, your health! ” 

“But, 0 longest of mortals!” said Paul, refilling his glass, 
“though the public may allow you to eat your mutton off their 
backs for a short time, they will kick up at last, and upset 
you and your banquet; in other words (pardon my metaphor, 
dear Ned, in remembrance of the part I have lately main- 
tained in ‘ The Asinseum, ’ that most magnificent and meta- 
phorical of journals!), — in other words, the police will nab 
thee at last; and thou wilt have the distinguished fate, 
as thou already hast the distinguishing characteristic, of 
Absalom ! ” 

“You mean that I shall be hanged,” said Long Ned, “ that 
may or may not be; but he who fears death never enjoys 
life. Consider, Paul, that though hanging is a bad fate, 
starving is a worse; wherefore fill your glass, and let us 
drink to the health of that great donkey, the people, and may 
we never want saddles to ride it ! ” 

“To the great donkey,” cried Paul, tossing off his bumper; 
“may your (; xj)ears be as long! But I own to you, my friend, 
that I cannot enter into your plans. And, as a token of my 
resolution, I shall drink no more, for my eyes already begin 
to dance in the air ; and if I listen longer to your resistless 
eloquence, my feet may share the same fate ! ” 

So saying, Paul rose; nor could any entreaty, on the part 
of his entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat. 

“Nay, as you will,” said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant 
tone, and arranging his cravat before the glass, — “ nay, as you 
will. Ned Pepper requires no man’s companionship against 
his liking; and if the noble spark of ambition be not in your 
bosom, ’t is no use spending my breath in blowing at what 
only existed in my too flattering opinion of your qualities. 
So then, you propose to return to MacGrawler (the scurvy old 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


59 


cheat!), and pass the inglorious remainder of your life in the 
mangling of authors and the murder of grammar? Go, my 
good fellow, go! scribble again and forever for MacGrawler, 
and let him live upon thy brains instead of suffering thy 
brains to — ” 

“Hold! ” cried Paul. “Although I may have some scruples 
which prevent my adoption of that rising line of life you have 
proposed to me, yet you are very much mistaken if you imag- 
ine me so spiritless as any longer to subject myself to the 
frauds of that rascal MacGrawler. No ! My present inten- 
tion is to pay my old nurse a visit. It appears to me passing 
strange. that though I have left her so many weeks, she has 
never relented enough to track me out, which one would think 
would have been no difficult matter; and now, you see, that 
I am pretty well off, having five guineas and four shillings all 
my own, and she can scarcely think I want her money, my 
heart melts to her, and I shall go and ask pardon for my 
haste ! ” 

“Pshaw! sentimental, ” cried Long Ned, a little alarmed at 
the thought of Paul’s gliding from those clutches which he 
thought had now so firmly closed upon him. “Why, you 
surely don’t mean, after having once tasted the joys of inde- 
pendence, to go back to the boozing-ken, and bear all Mother 
Lobkins’s drunken tantrums ! Better have stayed with Mac- 
Grawler, of the two ! ” 

“You mistake me,” answered Paul; “I mean solely to make 
it up with her, and get her permission to see the world. My 
ultimate intention is — to travel.” ' 

“Right,” cried Ned, “on the high-road, — and on horse- 
back, I hope.” 

“No, my Colossus of Roads! no. I am in doubt whether 
or not I shall enlist in a marching regiment, or — Give me 
your advice on it! I fancy I have a great turn for the stage, 
ever since I saw Garrick in ‘ Richard.’ Shall I turn stroller? 
It must be a merry life.” 

“Oh, the devil! ” cried Ned. “I myself once did Cassio in 
a barn, and every one swore I enacted the drunken scene to 
perfection ; but you have no notion what a lamentable life it is 


60 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


to a man of any susceptibility. No, my friend, no ! There is 
only one line in all the old plays worthy thy attention, — 

“ ‘ Toby or not toby, 1 that is the question/ 

I forget the rest ! ” 

“ Well,” said our hero, answering in the same jocular vein, 
“I confess I have ‘ the actor’s high ambition.’ It is astonish- 
ing how my heart beat when Richard cried out, ‘ Come bustle , 2 
bustle ! 1 Yes, Pepper, avaunt! — 

“ 1 A thousand hearts are great within my bosom/ ” 

“Well, well,” said Long Ned, stretching himself, “since 
you are so fond of the play, what say you to an excursion 
thither to-night? Garrick acts.” 

“Done! ” cried Paul. 

“Done!” echoed lazily Long Ned, rising with that blase 
air which distinguishes the matured man of the world from 
the enthusiastic tyro, — “ done ! and we will adjourn after- 
wards to the White Horse.” 

“ But stay a moment, ” said Paul ; “ if you remember, I owed 
you a guinea when I last saw you, — here it is ! ” 

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Long Ned, refusing the money, — 
“nonsense! You want the money at present; pay me when 
you are richer. Nay, never be coy about it; debts of honour 
are not paid now as they used to be. We lads of the Fish 
Lane Club have changed all that. Well, well, if I must! ” 

And Long Ned, seeing that Paul insisted, pocketed the 
guinea. When this delicate matter had been arranged, — 

“Come,” said Pepper, “come, get your hat; but, bless me! 
I have forgotten one thing.” 

“What?” 

“Why, my fine Paul, consider. The play is a bang-up 
sort of a place; look at your coat and your waistcoat, that ’s 
all! ” 

Our hero was struck dumb with this argumentum ad homi- 
nem. But Long Ned, after enjoying his perplexity, relieved 
him of it by telling him that he knew of an honest tradesman 


1 The highway. 


Money. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 61 

who kept a ready-made shop just by the theatre, and who 
could fit him out in a moment. 

In fact, Long Ned was as good as his word; he carried Paul 
to a tailor, who gave him for the sum of thirty shillings — half 
ready money, half on credit — a green coat with a tarnished 
gold lace, a pair of red inexpressibles, and a pepper-and-salt 
waistcoat. It is true, they were somewhat of the largest, for 
they had once belonged to no less a person than Long Ned 
himself; hut Paul did not then regard those niceties of 
apparel, as he was subsequently taught to do by Gentleman 
George (a personage hereafter to be introduced to our reader), 
and he went to the theatre as well satisfied with himself as 
if he had been Mr. T or the Count de M . 

Our adventurers are now quietly seated in the theatre ; and 
we shall not think it necessary to detail the performances they 
saw, or the observations they made. Long Ned was one of 
those superior beings of the road who would not for the world 
have condescended to appear anywhere but in the boxes ; and, 
accordingly, the friends procured a couple of places in the 
dress-tier. In the next box to the one our adventurers 
adorned they remarked, more especially than the rest of the 
audience, a gentleman and a young lady seated next each 
other; the latter, who was about thirteen years old, was so 
uncommonly beautiful that Paul, despite his dramatic enthu- 
siasm, could scarcely divert his eyes from her countenance to 
the stage. Her hair, of a bright and fair auburn, hung in 
profuse ringlets about her neck, shedding a softer shade upon 
a complexion in which the roses seemed just budding as it 
were into blush. Her eyes, large, blue, and rather languish- 
ing than brilliant, were curtained by the darkest lashes ; her 
mouth seemed literally girt with smiles, so numberless were 
the dimples that every time the full, ripe, dewy lips were 
parted rose into sight; and the enchantment of the dimples 
was aided by two rows of teeth more dazzling than the richest 
pearls that ever glittered on a bride. But the chief charm of 
the face was its exceeding and touching air of innocence and 
girlish softness ; you might have gazed forever upon that first 
unspeakable bloom, that all untouched and stainless down, 


62 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


which seemed as if a very breath could mar it. Perhaps the 
face might have wanted animation; but perhaps, also, it bor- 
rowed from that want an attraction. The repose of the feat- 
ures was so soft and gentle that the eye wandered there with 
the same delight, and left it with the same reluctance, which 
it experiences in dwelling on or in quitting those hues which 
are found to harmonize the most with its vision. But while 
Paul was feeding his gaze on this young beauty, the keen 
glances of Long Ned had found an object no less fascinating 
in a large gold watch which the gentleman who accompanied 
the damsel ever and anon brought to his eye, as if he were 
waxing a little weary of the length of the pieces or the linger- 
ing progression of time. 

“ What a beautiful face ! ” whispered Paul. 

“Is the face gold, then, as well as the back?” whispered 
Long Ned, in return. 

Our hero started, frowned, and despite the gigantic stature 
of his comrade, told him, very angrily, to find some other sub- 
ject for jesting. Ned in his turn stared, but made no reply. 

Meanwhile Paul, though the lady was rather too young to fall 
in love with, began wondering what relationship her compan- 
ion bore to her. Though the gentleman altogether was hand- 
some, yet his features and the whole character of his face were 
widely different from those on which Paul gazed with such 
delight. He was not, seemingly, above five-and-forty, but his 
forehead was knit into many a line and furrow; a,nd in his 
eyes the light, though searching, was more sober and staid 
than became his years. A disagreeable expression played 
about the mouth; and the shape of the face, which was long 
and thin, considerably detracted from the prepossessing effect 
of a handsome aquiline nose, fine teeth, and a dark, manly, 
though sallow complexion. There was a mingled air of 
shrewdness and distraction in the expression of his face. He 
seemed to pay very little attention to the play, or to anything 
about him; but he testified very considerable alacrity, when 
the play was over, in putting her cloak around his young com- 
panion, and in threading their way through the thick crowd 
that the boxes were now pouring forth. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


63 


Paul and his companion silently, and each with very 
different motives from the other, followed them. They were 
now at the door of the theatre. 

A servant stepped forward and informed the gentleman that 
his carriage was a few paces distant, but that it might be some 
time before it could drive up to the theatre. 

“Can you walk to the carriage, my dear?” said the gentle- 
man to his young charge ; and she answering in the affirma- 
tive, they both left the house, preceded by the servant. 

“Come on!” said Long Ned, hastily, and walking in the 
same direction which the strangers had taken. Paul readily 
agreed. They soon overtook the strangers. Long Ned walked 
the nearest to the gentleman, and brushed by him in passing. 
Presently a voice cried, “Stop thief! ” and Long Ned, saying 
to Paul, “Shift for yourself, run!” darted from our hero’s 
side into the crowd, and vanished in a twinkling. Before 
Paul could recover his amaze, he found himself suddenly 
seized by the collar; he turned abruptly, and saw the dark 
face of the young lady’s companion. 

“ Rascal ! ” cried the gentleman, “ my watch ! ” 

“Watch! ” repeated Paul, bewildered, and only for the sake 
of the young lady refraining from knocking down his arrester, 
— “ watch ! ” 

“ Ay, young man ! ” cried a fellow in a great-coat, who now 
suddenly appeared on the other side of Paul; “this gentle- 
man’s watch. Please your honour,” addressing the complain- 
ant, “7 be a watch too; shall I take up this chap?” 

“ By all means, ” cried the gentleman ; “ I would not have lost 
my watch for twice its value. I can swear I saw this fellow’s 
companion snatch it from my fob. The thief’s gone; but we 
have at least the accomplice. I give him in strict charge to 
you, watchman; take the consequences if you let him escape.” 

The watchman answered, sullenly, that he did not want to 
be threatened, and he knew how to discharge his duty. 

“Don’t answer me, fellow! ” said the gentleman, haughtily; 
“ do as I tell you ! ” And after a little colloquy, Paul found 
himself suddenly marched off between two tall fellows, who 
looked prodigiously inclined to eat him. By this time he had 


64 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


recovered his surprise and dismay. He did not want the pene- 
tration to see that his companion had really committed the 
offence for which he was charged; and he also foresaw that 
the circumstance might be attended with disagreeable conse- 
quences to himself. Under all the features of the case, he 
thought that an attempt to escape would not be an imprudent 
proceeding on his part; accordingly, after moving a few paces 
very quietly and very passively, he watched his opportunity, 
wrenched himself from the gripe of the gentleman on his left, 
and brought the hand thus released against the cheek of the 
gentleman on his right with so hearty a good will as to cause 
him to relinquish his hold, and retreat several paces towards 
the areas in a slanting position. But that roundabout sort of 
blow with the left fist is very unfavourable towards the pres- 
ervation of a firm balance; and before Paul had recovered 
sufficiently to make an effectual bolt, he was prostrated to 
the earth by a blow from the other and undamaged watchman, 
which utterly deprived him of his senses ; and when he recov- 
ered those useful possessions (which a man may reasonably 
boast of losing, since it is only the minority who have them 
to lose), he found himself stretched on a bench in the 
watchhouse. 


CHAPTER VII. 

Begirt with many a gallant slave, 

Apparelled as becomes the brave. 

Old Giaffir sat in his divan : 

Much I misdoubt this wayward boy 
Will one day work me more annoy. 

Bride of Abydos. 

The learned and ingenious John Schweighseuser (a name 
facile to spell and mellifluous to pronounce) hath been pleased, 
in that Appendix continens particulam doctrince de mente 
humana, which closeth the volume of his “Opuscula Acad- 
emical to observe (we translate from memory) that, “in the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


65 


infinite variety of things which in the theatre of the world 
occur to a man’s survey, or in some manner or another affect 
his body or his mind, by far the greater part are so contrived 
as to bring to him rather some sense of pleasure than of pain 
or discomfort.” Assuming that this holds generally good in 
well-constituted frames, we point out a notable example in the 
case of the incarcerated Paul; for although that youth was in 
no agreeable situation at the time present, and although 
nothing very encouraging smiled upon him from the pros- 
pects of the future, yet, as soon as he had recovered his 
consciousness, and given himself a rousing shake, he found 
an immediate source of pleasure in discovering, first, that 
several ladies and gentlemen bore him company in his impris- 
onment; and, secondly, in perceiving a huge jug of water 
within his reach, which, as his awaking sensation was that 
of burning thirst, he delightedly emptied at a draught. He 
then, stretching himself, looked around with a wistful earn- 
estness, and discovered a back turned towards him, and 
recumbent on the floor, which at the very first glance 
appeared to him familiar. “Surely,” thought he, “I know 
that frieze coat, and the peculiar turn of those narrow shoul- 
ders.” Thus soliloquizing, he raised himself, and putting out 
his leg, he gently kicked the reclining form. “Muttering 
strange oaths,” the form turned round, and raising itself upon 
that inhospitable part of the body in which the introduction 
of foreign feet is considered anything but an honour, it fixed 
its dull blue eyes upon the face of the disturber of its slum- 
bers, gradually opening them wider and wider, until they 
seemed to have enlarged themselves into proportions fit for 
the swallowing of the important truth that burst upon them, 
and then from the mouth of the creature issued, — 

“ Queer my glims, if that be n’t little Paul ! ” 

“Ay, Dummie, here I am! Not been long without being 
laid by the heels, you see! Life is short; we must make the 
best use of our time ! ” 

Upon this, Mr. Dunnaker (it was no less respectable a 
person) scrambled up from the floor, and seating himself on 
the bench beside Paul, said in a pitying tone, — 

5 


66 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Vy, laus-a-me! if you be n’t knocked o’ the head! Your 
poll ’s as bloody as Murphy’s face 1 ven his throat ’s cut! ” 

“ ’T is only the fortune of war, Dummie, and a mere trifle ; 
the heads manufactured at Thames Court are not easily put 
out of order. But tell me, how come you here?” 

“ Yy, I had been lushing heavy vet — ” 

“Till you grew light in the head, eh, — and fell into the 
kennel?” 

“Yes.” 

“Mine is a worse business than that, I fear; ” and therewith 
Paul, in a lower voice, related to the trusty Dummie the train 
of accidents which had conducted him to his present asylum. 
Dummie’s face elongated as he listened; however, when the 
narrative was over, he endeavoured such consolatory pallia- 
tives as occurred to him. He represented, first, the possibil- 
ity that the gentleman might not take the trouble to appear; 
secondly, the certainty that no watch was found about Paul’s 
person; thirdly, the fact that, even by the gentleman’s con- 
fession, Paul had not been the actual offender; fourthly, if 
the worst came to the worst, what were a few weeks’ or even 
months’ imprisonment? 

“Blow me tight! ” said Dummie, “if it be n’t as good a vay 
of passing the time as a cove as is fond of snuggery need 
desire! ” 

This observation had no comfort for Paul, who recoiled, 
with all the maiden coyness of one to whom such unions are 
unfamiliar, from a matrimonial alliance with the snuggery of 
the House of Correction. He rather trusted to another source 
for consolation. In a word, he encouraged the flattering belief 
that Long Ned, finding that Paul had been caught instead of 
himself, would have the generosity to come forward and excul- 
pate him from the charge. On hinting this idea to Dummie, 
that accomplished “ man about town ” could not for some time 
believe that any simpleton could be so thoroughly unac- 
quainted with the world as seriously to entertain so ridicu- 
lous a notion; and, indeed, it is somewhat remarkable that 

1 “ Murphy’s face,” unlearned reader, appeareth, in Irish phrase, to mean 
“ pig’s head.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


67 


such a hope should ever have told its flattering tale to one 
brought up in the house of Mrs. Margaret Lobkins. But 
Paul, we have seen, had formed many of his notions from 
books; and he had the same fine theories of your “moral 
rogue ” that possess the minds of young patriots when they 
first leave college for the House of Commons, and think integ- 
rity a prettier thing than office. 

Mr. Dunnaker urged Paul, seriously, to dismiss so vague 
and childish a fancy from his breast, and rather to think of 
what line of defence it would be best for him to pursue. 
This subject being at length exhausted, Paul recurred to Mrs. 
Lobkins, and inquired whether Dummie had lately honoured 
that lady with a visit. 

Mr. Dunnaker replied that he had, though with much diffi- 
culty, appeased her anger against him for his supposed abet- 
ment of PauPs excesses, and that of late she had held sundry 
conversations with Dummie respecting our hero himself. 
Upon questioning Dummie further, Paul learned the good 
matron’s reasons for not evincing that solicitude for his return 
which our hero had reasonably anticipated. The fact was, 
that she, having no confidence whatsoever in his own resources 
independent of her, had not been sorry of an opportunity 
effectually, as she hoped, to humble that pride which had so 
revolted her ; and she pleased her vanity by anticipating the 
time when Paul, starved into submission, would gladly and 
penitently re-seek the shelter of her roof, and, tamed as it 
were by experience, would never again kick against the yoke 
which her matronly prudence thought it fitting to impose 
upon him. She contented herself, then, with obtaining from 
Dummie the intelligence that our hero was under MacGrawler’s 
roof, and therefore out of all positive danger to life and limb; 
and as she could not foresee the ingenious exertions of intel- 
lect by which Paul had converted himself into the “Nobilitas ” 
of “The Asinseum,” and thereby saved himself from utter 
penury, she was perfectly convinced, from her knowledge of 
character, that the illustrious MacGrawler would not long 
continue that protection to the rebellious protege, which in her 
opinion was his only preservative from picking pockets or 


68 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


famishing. To the former decent alternative she knew Paul’s 
great and jejune aversion; and she consequently had little 
fear for his morals or his safety, in thus abandoning him for 
a while to chance. Any anxiety, too, that she might other- 
wise have keenly experienced was deadened by the habitual 
intoxication now increasing upon the good lady with age, and 
which, though at times she could be excited to all her charac- 
teristic vehemence, kept her senses for the most part plunged 
into a Lethean stupor, or, to speak more courteously, into a 
poetical abstraction from the things of the external world. 

“But,” said Dummie, as by degrees he imparted the solu- 
tion of the dame’s conduct to the listening ear of his com- 
panion, — “ but I hopes as how ven you be out of this ’ere 
scrape, leetle Paul, you vill take varning, and drop Meester 
Pepper’s acquaintance (vich, I must say, I vas alvays a sorry 
to see you hencourage), and go home to the Mug, and fam 
grasp the old mort, for she has not been like the same cretur 
ever since you vent. ' She ’s a delicate-’arted ’oman, that 
Piggy Lob!” 

So appropriate a panegyric on Mrs. Margaret Lobkins might 
at another time have excited Paul’s risible muscles; but at 
that moment he really felt compunction for the unceremoni- 
ous manner in which he had left her, and the softness of re- 
gretful affection imbued in its hallowing colours even the 
image of Piggy Lob. 

In conversation of this intellectual and domestic descrip- 
tion, the night and ensuing morning passed away, till Paul 
found himself in the awful presence of Justice Burnflat. 
Several cases were disposed of before his own; and among 
others Mr. Dummie Dunnaker obtained his release, though 
not without a severe reprimand for his sin of inebriety, which 
no doubt sensibly affected the ingenuous spirit of that noble 
character. At length Paul’s turn came. He heard, as he 
took his station, a general buzz. At first he imagined it was 
at his own interesting appearance; but raising his eyes, he 
perceived that it was at the entrance of the gentleman who 
was to become his accuser. 

“Hush,” said some one near him, “’tis Lawyer Brandon, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


69 


Ah, he ’s a ’cute fellow ! it will go hard with the person he 
complains of.” 

There was a happy fund of elasticity of spirit about our 
hero; and though he had not the good fortune to have “a 
blighted heart,” — a circumstance which, by the poets and 
philosophers of the present day, is supposed to inspire a 
man with wonderful courage, and make him impervious to all 
misfortunes, — yet he bore himself up with wonderful courage 
under his present trying situation, and was far from over- 
whelmed, though he was certainly a little damped, by the 
observation he had just heard. 

Mr. Brandon was, indeed, a barrister of considerable repu- 
tation, and in high esteem in the world, not only for talent, 
but also for a great austerity of manners, which, though a 
little mingled with sternness and acerbity for the errors o£ 
other men, was naturally thought the more praiseworthy on 
that account; there being, as persons of experience are doubt- 
less aware, two divisions in the first class of morality, — im- 
primis, a great hatred for the vices of one’s neighbour; 
secondly, the possession of virtues in one’s self. 

Mr. Brandon was received with great courtesy by Justice 
Burnflat; and as he came, watch in hand (a borrowed watch), 
saying that his time was worth five guineas a moment, the 
justice proceeded immediately to business. 

Nothing could be clearer, shorter, or more satisfactory than 
the evidence of Mr. Brandon. The corroborative testimony 
of the watchman followed; and then Paul was called upon 
for his defence. This was equally brief with the charge; 
but, alas ! it was not equally satisfactory. It consisted in a 
firm declaration of his innocence. His comrade, he con- 
fessed, might have stolen the watch; but he humbly sug- 
gested that that was exactly the very reason why he had not 
stolen it. 

“How long, fellow,” asked Justice Burnflat, “have you 
known your companion?” 

“About half a year.” 

“And what is his name and calling?” 

Paul hesitated, and declined to answer. 


70 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“ A sad piece of business ! 99 said the justice, in a melan- 
choly tone, and shaking his head portentously. 

The lawyer acquiesced in the aphorism, but with great 
magnanimity observed that he did not wish to be hard upon 
the young man. His youth was in his favour, and his offence 
was probably the consequence of evil company. He suggested, 
therefore, that as he must be perfectly aware of the address of 
his friend, he should receive a full pardon if he would imme- 
diately favour the magistrate with that information. He 
concluded by remarking, with singular philanthropy, that it 
was not the punishment of the youth, but the recovery of his 
watch, that he desired. 

Justice Burnflat, having duly impressed upon our hero’s 
mind the disinterested and Christian mercy of the complain- 
ant, and the everlasting obligation Paul was under to him for 
its display, now repeated, with double solemnity, those queries 
respecting the habitation and name of Long Ned which our 
hero had before declined to answer. 

Grieved are we to confess that Paul, ungrateful for and 
wholly untouched by the beautiful benignity of Lawyer 
Brandon, continued firm in his stubborn denial to betray 
his comrade; and with equal obduracy he continued to insist 
upon his own innocence and unblemished respectability of 
character. 

a Your name, young man?” quoth the justice. “Your 
name, you say, is Paul, —Paul what? You have many an 
alias, I ’ll be bound.” 

Here the young gentleman again hesitated; at length he 
replied, — 

“Paul Lobkins, your worship.” 

“ Lobkins ! ” repeated the judge, — “ Lobkins ! Come hither, 
Saunders; have not we that name down in our black books?” 

“So, please your worship,” quoth a little stout man, very 
useful in many respects to the Festus of the police, “there is 
one Peggy Lobkins, who keeps a public-house, a sort of flash 
ken, called the Mug, in Thames Court, — not exactly in our 
neat, your worship.” 

“Ho, ho!” said Justice Burnflat, winking at Mr. Brandon, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


71 


“we must sift this a little. Pray, Mr. Paul Lobkins, what 
relation is the good landlady of the Mug, in Thames Court, to 
yourself? ” 

“None at all, sir,” said Paul, hastily; “she's only a 
friend ! ” 

Upon this there was a laugh in the court. 

“Silence!” cried the justice. “And I dare say, Mr. Paul 
Lobkins, that this friend of yours will vouch for the respecta- 
bility of your character, upon which you are pleased to value 
yourself? ” 

“I have not a doubt of it, sir,” answered Paul; and there 
was another laugh: 

“And is there any other equally weighty and praiseworthy 
friend of yours who will do you the like kindness?” 

Paul hesitated ; and at that moment, to the surprise of the 
court, but above all to the utter and astounding surprise of 
himself, two gentlemen, dressed in the height of the fashion, 
pushed forward, and bowing to the justice, declared them- 
selves ready to vouch for the thorough respectability and 
unimpeachable character of Mr. Paul Lobkins, whom they 
had known, they said, for many years, and for whom they 
had the greatest respect. While Paul was surveying the per- 
sons of these kind friends, whom he never remembered to 
have seen before in the course of his life, the lawyer, who 
was a very sharp fellow, whispered to the magistrate; and 
that dignitary nodding as in assent, and eying the new-comers, 
inquired the names of Mr. Lobkins’s witnesses. 

“Mr. Eustace Eitzherbert” and “Mr. William Howard 
Russell,” were the several replies. 

Names so aristocratic produced a general sensation. But 
the impenetrable justice, calling the same Mr. Saunders he 
had addressed before, asked him to examine well the counte- 
nances of Mr. Lobkins’s friends. 

As the alguazil eyed the features of the memorable Don 
Raphael and the illustrious Manuel Morales, when the former 
of those accomplished personages thought it convenient to 
assume the travelling dignity of an Italian prince, son of the 
sovereign of the valleys which lie between Switzerland, the 


72 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Milanese, and Savoy, while the latter was contented with 
being servant to Monseigneur le Prince; even so, with far 
more earnestness than respect, did Mr. Saunders eye the feat- 
ures of those high-born gentlemen, Messrs. Eustace Fitzher- 
bert and William Howard Russell; but after a long survey he 
withdrew his eyes, made an unsatisfactory and unrecognizing 
gesture to the magistrate, and said, — 

“ Please your worship, they are none of my flock; but Bill 
Troutling knows more of this sort of genteel chaps than I 
does.” 

“Bid Bill Troutling appear! ” was the laconic order. 

At that name a certain modest confusion might have been 
visible in the faces of Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and Mr. Wil- 
liam Howard Russell, had not the attention of the court been 
immediately directed to another case. A poor woman had 
been committed for seven days to the House of Correction on 
a charge of disr espect ability . Her husband, the person most 
interested in the matter, now came forward to disprove the 
charge ; and by help of his neighbours he succeeded. 

“It is all very true,” said Justice Burnflat; “but as your 
wife, my good fellow, will be out in five days, it will be 
scarcely worth while to release her now .” 1 

So judicious a decision could not fail of satisfying the 
husband ; and the audience became from that moment enlight- 
ened as to a very remarkable truth, — namely, that five days 
out of seven bear a peculiarly small proportion to the remain- 
ing two ; and that people in England have so prodigious a love 
for punishment that though it is not worth while to release an 
innocent woman from prison five days sooner than one would 
otherwise have done, it is exceedingly well worth while to 
commit her to prison for seven ! 

When the husband, passing his rough hand across his eyes, 
and muttering some vulgar impertinence or another, had with- 
drawn, Mr. Saunders said, — 

“ Here be Bill Troutling, your worship ! ” 

“Oh, well,” quoth the justice; “and now, Mr. Eustace 

1 A fact, occurring in the month of January, 1830. Vide “ The Morning 
Herald.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 73 

Fitz — Hallo, how ’s this! Where are Mr. William Howard 
Russell and his friend Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert? ” 

“ Echo answered, — where”? ” 

Those noble gentlemen, having a natural dislike to be 
confronted with so low a person as Mr. Bill Troutling, had, 
the instant public interest was directed from them, silently 
disappeared from a scene where their rank in life seemed so 
little regarded. If, reader, you should be anxious to learn 
from what part of the world the transitory visitants appeared, 
know that they were spirits sent by that inimitable magician, 
Long Ned, partly to report how matters fared in the court; 
for Mr. Pepper, in pursuance of that old policy which teaches 
that the nearer the fox is to the hunters, the more chance he 
has of being overlooked, had, immediately on his abrupt de- 
parture from Paul, dived into a house in the very street where 
his ingenuity had displayed itself, and in which oysters and 
ale nightly allured and regaled an assembly that, to speak 
impartially, was more numerous than select. There had he 
learned how a pickpocket had been seized for unlawful affec- 
tion to another man’s watch; and there, while he quietly 
seasoned his oysters, had he, with his characteristic acute- 
ness, satisfied his mind by the conviction that that arrested 
unfortunate was no other than Paul. Partly, therefore, as a 
precaution for his own safety, that he might receive early 
intelligence should Paul’s defence make a change of residence 
expedient, and partly (out of the friendliness of fellowship) 
to back his companion with such aid as the favourable testi- 
mony of two well-dressed persons, little known “about town,” 
might confer, he had despatched those celestial beings who 
had appeared under the mortal names of Eustace Fitzherbert 
and William Howard Russell to the imperial court of Justice 
Burnflat. Having thus accounted for the apparition (the dis- 
apparition requires no commentary) of Paul’s “friends,” we 
return to Paul himself. 

Despite the perils with which he was girt, our young hero 
fought out to the last ; but the justice was not by any means 
willing to displease Mr. Brandon, and observing that an in- 


74 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


credulous and biting sneer remained stationary on that gentle- 
man’s lip during the whole of Paul’s defence, he could not but 
shape his decision according to the well-known acuteness of 
the celebrated lawyer. Paul was sentenced to retire for three 
months to that country-house situated at Bridewell, to which 
the ungrateful functionaries of justice often banish their most 
active citizens. 

As soon as the sentence was passed, Brandon, whose keen 
eyes saw no hope of recovering his lost treasure, declared that 
the rascal had perfectly the Old Bailey cut of countenance, 
and that he did not doubt but, if ever he lived to be a judge, 
he should also live to pass a very different description of sen* 
tence on the offender. 

So saying, he resolved to lose no more time, and very 
abruptly left the office, without any other comfort than the 
remembrance that, at all events, he had sent the boy to a 
place where, let him be ever so innocent at present, he was 
certain to come out as much inclined to be guilty as his 
friends could desire; joined to such moral reflection as the 
tragedy of Bombastes Furioso might have afforded to himself 
in that sententious and terse line, — 

“ Thy watch is gone, — watches are made to go.” 

Meanwhile Paul was conducted in state to his retreat, in 
company with two other offenders, — one a middle-aged man, 
though a very old “file,” who was sentenced for getting money 
under false pretences, and the other a little boy who had been 
found guilty of sleeping under a colonnade ; it being the espe- 
cial beauty of the English law to make no fine-drawn and 
nonsensical shades of difference between vice and misfortune, 
and its peculiar method of protecting the honest being to make 
as many rogues as possible in as short a space of time. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


75 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Common Sense. What is the end of punishment as regards the individual 
punished? 

Custom. To make him better ! 

Common Sense. How do you punish young offenders who are (from their 
youth) peculiarly alive to example, and whom it is therefore more easy either 
to ruin or reform than the matured ? 

Custom. We send them to the House of Correction, to associate with the 
d — dest rascals in the country ! 

Dialogue between Common Sense and Custom . — Very scarce. 

As it was rather late in the day when Paul made his first 
entree at Bridewell, he passed that night in the “ receiving- 
room. ” The next morning, as soon as he had been examined 
by the surgeon and clothed in the customary uniform, he was 
ushered, according to his classification, among the good com- 
pany who had been considered guilty of that compendious 
offence, “a misdemeanour.” Here a tall gentleman marched 
up to him, and addressed him in a certain language, which 
might be called the freemasonry of flash, and which Paul, 
though he did not comprehend verbatim , rightly understood to 
be an inquiry whether he was a thorough rogue and an entire 
rascal. He answered half in confusion, half in anger; and 
his reply was so detrimental to any favourable influence he 
might otherwise have exercised over the interrogator, that the 
latter personage, giving him a pinch in the ear, shouted out, 
“ Ramp, ramp! ” and at that significant and awful word, Paul 
found himself surrounded in a trice by a whole host of ingen- 
ious tormentors. One pulled this member, another pinched 
that; one cuffed him before, and another thrashed him behind. 
By way of interlude to this pleasing occupation, they stripped 
him of the very few things that in his change of dress he had 
retained. One carried off his handkerchief, a second his neck- 
cloth, and a third, luckier than either, possessed himself of a 
pair of carnelian shirt-buttons, given to Paul as a gage d’ amour 


76 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


by a young lady who sold oranges near the Tower. Happily, 
before this initiatory process — technically termed “ramp- 
ing,” and exercised upon all new-comers who seem to have 
a spark of decency in them — had reduced the bones of Paul, 
who fought tooth and nail in his defence, to the state of mag- 
nesia, a man of a grave aspect, who had hitherto plucked his 
oakum in quiet, suddenly rose, thrust himself between the 
victim and the assailants, and desired the latter, like one 
having authority, to leave the lad alone, and go and be 
d— d. 

This proposal to resort to another place for amusement, 
though uttered in a very grave and tranquil manner, produced 
that instantaneous effect which admonitions from great rogues 
generally work upon little. Messieurs the Tampers ceased 
from their amusements; and the ringleader of the gang, 
thumping Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a cap- 
ital fellow, and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he 
hoped had not given any offence. 

Paul, still clenching his fist, was about to answer in no 
pacific mood, when a turnkey, who did not care in the least 
how many men he locked up for an offence, but who did not 
at all like the trouble of looking after any one of his flock to 
see that the offence was not committed, now suddenly appeared 
among the set; and after scolding them for the excessive 
plague they were to him, carried off two of the poorest of the 
mob to solitary confinement. It happened, of course, that 
these two had not taken the smallest share in the disturbance. 
This scene over, the company returned to picking oakum ; the 
tread-mill, that admirably just invention by which a strong 
man suffers no fatigue and a weak one loses his health for 
life, not having been then introduced into our excellent estab- 
lishments for correcting crime. Bitterly and with many dark 
and wrathful feelings, in which the sense of injustice at pun- 
ishment alone bore him up against the humiliations to which 
he was subjected, — bitterly and with a swelling heart, in 
which the thoughts that lead to crime were already forcing 
their way through a soil suddenly warmed for their growth, 
did Paul bend over his employment. He felt himself touched 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


77 


on the arm ; he turned, and saw that the gentleman who had 
so kindly delivered him from his tormentors was now sitting 
next to him. Paul gazed long and earnestly upon his neigh- 
bour, struggling with the thought that he had beheld that 
•sagacious countenance in happier times, although now, alas! 
it was altered not only by time and vicissitudes but by that 
air of gravity which the cares of manhood spread gradually 
over the face of the most thoughtless, — until all doubt melted 
away, and he exclaimed, — 

“Is that you, Mr. Tomlinson? How glad I am to see you 
here ! ” 

“And I,” returned the quondam murderer for the news- 
papers, with a nasal twang, “should be very glad to see 
myself anywhere else.” 

Paul made no answer; and Augustus continued, — 

“‘To a wise man all places are the same, ’ — so it has been 
said. I don’t believe it, Paul, — I don’t believe it. But a 
truce to reflection ! I remembered you the moment I saw you, 
though you are surprisingly grown. How is my friend Mac- 
Grawler? — still hard at work for ‘ The Asinseum ’?” 

“I believe so,” said Paul, sullenly, and hastening to change 
the conversation; “but tell me, Mr. Tomlinson, how came you 
hither? I heard you had gone down to the North of England 
to fulfil a lucrative employment.” 

“Possibly! The world always misrepresents the actions of 
those who are constantly before it.” 

“It is very true,” said Paul; “and I have said the same 
thing myself a hundred times in ‘ The Asinaeum, ’ for we were 
never too lavish of our truths in that magnificent journal. 
’T is astonishing what a way we made three ideas go.” 

“You remind me of myself and my newspaper labours,” 
rejoined Augustus Tomlinson. “I am not quite sure that 1 
had so many as three ideas to spare ; for, as you say, it is 
astonishing how far that number may go, properly managed. 
It is with writers as with strolling players, ■ — the same three 
ideas that did for Turks in one scene do for Highlanders in 
the next; but you must tell me your history one of these days, 
and you shall hear mine.” 


78 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“I should be excessively obliged to you for your confidence,” 
said Paul, “and I doubt not but your life must be excessively 
entertaining. Mine, as yet, has been but insipid. The lives 
of literary men are not fraught with adventure ; and I ques- 
tion whether every writer in ‘ The Asinseum ’ has not led 
pretty nearly the same existence as that which I have sus- 
tained myself.” 

In conversation of this sort our newly restored friends 
passed the remainder of the day, until the hour of half-past 
four, when the prisoners are to suppose night has begun, and 
be locked up in their bedrooms. Tomlinson then, who was 
glad to re-find a person who had known him in his beaux 
jours , spoke privately to the turnkey; and the result of the 
conversation was the coupling Paul and Augustus in the same 
chamber, which was a sort of stone box, that generally accom- 
modated three, and was — for we have measured it, as we 
would have measured the cell of the prisoner of Chillon — just 
eight feet by six. 

We do not intend, reader, to indicate, by broad colours and 
in long detail, the moral deterioration of our hero; because we 
have found, by experience, that such pains on our part do 
little more than make thee blame our stupidity instead of 
lauding our intention. We shall therefore only work out our 
moral by subtle hints and brief comments; and we shall now 
content ourselves with reminding thee that hitherto thou hast 
seen Paul honest in the teeth of circumstances. Despite the 
contagion of the Mug, despite his associates in Pish Lane, 
despite his intimacy with Long Ned, thou hast seen him 
brave temptation, and look forward to some other career than 
that of robbery or fraud. Nay, even in his destitution, when 
driven from the abode of his childhood, thou hast observed 
how, instead of resorting to some more pleasurable or libertine 
road of life, he betook himself at once to the dull roof and 
insipid employments of MacGrawler, and preferred honestly 
earning his subsistence by the sweat of his brain to recurring 
to any of the numerous ways of living on others with which 
his experience among the worst part of society must have 
teemed, and which, to say the least of them, are more alluring 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


79 


to the young and the adventurous than the barren paths of 
literary labour. Indeed, to let thee into a secret, it had been 
Paul's daring ambition to raise himself into a worthy mem- 
ber of the community. His present circumstances, it may 
hereafter be seen, made the cause of a great change in his 
desires; and the conversation he held that night with the 
ingenious and skilful Augustus went more towards fitting him 
for the hero of this work than all the habits of his childhood 
or the scenes of his earlier youth. Young people are apt, 
erroneously, to believe that it is a bad thing to be exceedingly 
wicked. The House of Correction is so called, because it is a 
place where so ridiculous a notion is invariably corrected. 

The next day Paul was surprised by a visit from Mrs. 
Lobkins, who had heard of his situation and its causes from 
the friendly Dummie, and who had managed to obtain from 
Justice Burnflat an order of admission. They met, Pyramus 
and Thisbe like, with a wall, or rather an iron gate, between 
them; and Mrs. Lobkins, after an ejaculation of despair at 
the obstacle, burst weepingly into the pathetic reproach, — 

“ O Paul, thou hast brought thy pigs to a fine market ! ” 

“ 'T is a market proper for pigs, dear dame,” said Paul, who, 
though with a tear in his eye, did not refuse a joke as bitter 
as it was inelegant; “for, of all others, it is the spot where a 
man learns to take care of his bacon.” 

“ Hold your tongue ! ” cried the dame, angrily. “ What 
business has you to gabble on so while you are in limbo?” 

“ Ah, dear dame,” said Paul, “we can't help these rubs and 
stumbles on our road to preferment ! ” 

“ Road to the scragging-post ! ” cried the dame. “ I tells 
you, child, you '11 live to be hanged in spite of all my care 
and 'tent ion to you, though I hedicated you as a scholard, and 
always hoped as how you would grow up to be an honour to 
your — ” 

“King and country,” interrupted Paul. “We always say, 
honour to king and country, which means getting rich and 
paying taxes. ‘ The more taxes a man pays, the greater hon- 
our he is to both,' as Augustus says. Well, dear dame, all 
in good time.” 


80 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“What! you is merry, is you? Why does not you weep? 
Your heart is as hard as a brickbat. It looks quite unnatural 
and hyena-like to be so devil-me-careish ! ” So saying, the 
good dame’s tears gushed forth with the bitterness of a de- 
spairing Parisina. 

“Nay, nay,” said Paul, who, though he suffered far more 
intensely, bore the suffering far more easily than his patron- 
ess, “we cannot mend the matter by crying. Suppose you 
see what can be done for me. I dare say you may manage to 
soften the justice’s sentence by a little ‘ oil of palms; ’ and if 
you can get me out before I am quite corrupted, — a day or 
two longer in this infernal place will do the business, — I 
promise you that I will not only live honestly myself, but 
with people who live in the same manner.” 

“Buss me, Paul,” said the tender Mrs. Lobkins, “buss 
me — Oh! but I forgits the gate. I’ll see what can be 
done. And here, my lad, here ’s summat for you in the mean 
while, — a drop o’ the cretur, to preach comfort to your poor 
stomach. Hush! smuggle it through, or they ’ll see you.” 

Here the dame endeavoured to push a stone bottle through 
the bars of the gate; but, alas! though the neck passed 
through, the body refused, and the dame was forced to retract 
the “cretur.” Upon this, the kind-hearted woman renewed 
her sobbings ; and so absorbed was she in her grief that seem- 
ingly quite forgetting for what purpose she had brought the 
bottle, she applied it to her own mouth, and consoled herself 
with that elixir vitce which she had originally designed for 
Paul. 

This somewhat restored her; and after a most affecting 
scene the dame reeled off with the vacillating steps natural 
to woe, promising, as she went, that if love or money could 
shorten Paul’s confinement, neither should be wanting. We 
are rather at a loss to conjecture the exact influence which the 
former of these arguments, urged by the lovely Margaret, 
might have had upon Justice Burnflat. 

When the good dame had departed, Paul hastened to repick 
his oakum and rejoin his friend. He found the worthy 
Augustus privately selling little elegant luxuries, such as 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


81 


tobacco, gin, and rations of daintier viands than the prison 
allowed; for Augustus, having more money than the rest of 
his companions, managed, through the friendship of the turn- 
key, to purchase secretly, and to resell at about four hundred 
per cent, such comforts as the prisoners especially coveted . 1 

“A proof,” said Augustus, dryly, to Paul, “that by prm 
dence and exertion even in those places where a man cannot 
turn himself he may manage to turn a penny.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

“ Relate at large, my godlike guest,” she said, 

“ The Grecian stratagems, — the town betrayed ! ” 

Dryden : Virgil , Eneid , book ii. 

Descending thence, they ’scaped ! — Ibid. 

A great improvement had taken place in the character of 
Augustus Tomlinson since Paul had last encountered that 
illustrious man. Then Augustus had affected the man of 
pleasure, the learned lounger about town, the all-accom- 
plished Pericles of the papers, gayly quoting Horace, gravely 
flanking a fly from the leader of Lord Dunshunner. Now a 
more serious yet not a less supercilious air had settled upon 
his features; the pretence of fashion had given way to the 
pretence of wisdom; and from the man of pleasure Augustus 
Tomlinson had grown to the philosopher. With this eleva- 
tion alone, too, he was not content : he united the philosopher 
with the politician; and the ingenious rascal was pleased 
especially to pique himself upon being “a moderate Whig” ! 
“Paul,” he was wont to observe, “believe me, moderate 
Whiggism is a most excellent creed. It adapts itself to 

1 A very common practice at the Bridewell. The Governor at the Cold- 
bath-Fields, apparently a very intelligent and active man, every way fitted for 
a most arduous undertaking, informed us, in the only conversation we have 
had the honour to hold with him, that he thought he had nearly or quite de- 
stroyed in his jurisdiction this illegal method of commerce. 

6 


82 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


every possible change, to every conceivable variety of cir- 
cumstance. It is the only politics for us who are the aris- 
tocrats of that free body who rebel against tyrannical laws; 
for, hang it, I am none of your democrats. Let there be 
dungeons and turnkeys for the low rascals who whip clothes 
from the hedge where they hang to dry, or steal down an area 
in quest of a silver spoon; but houses of correction are not 
made for men who have received an enlightened education, — 
who abhor your petty thefts as much as a justice of peace can 
do, — who ought never to be termed dishonest in their dealings, 
but, if they are found out, i unlucky in their speculations ’ ! 1 
A pretty thing, indeed, that there should be distinctions of 
rank among other members of the community, and none 
among us! Where’s your boasted British Constitution, I 
should like to know, where are your privileges of aristocracy, 
if I, who am a gentleman born, know Latin, and have lived 
in the best society, should be thrust into this abominable 
place with a dirty fellow who was born in a cellar, and could 
never earn more at a time than would purchase a sausage? 
No, no! none of your levelling principles for me! I am 
liberal, Paul, and love liberty; but, thank Heaven, I despise 
your democracies ! ” 

Thus, half in earnest, half veiling a natural turn to sarcasm, 
would this moderate Whig run on for the hour together dur- 
ing those long nights, commencing at half-past four, in which 
he and Paul bore each other company. 

One evening, when Tomlinson was so bitterly disposed to 
be prolix that Paul felt himself somewhat wearied by his elo- 
quence, our hero, desirous of a change in the conversation, 
reminded Augustus of his promise to communicate his his- 
tory; and the philosophical Whig, nothing loath to speak of 
himself, cleared his throat, and began. 

HISTORY OF AUGUSTUS TOMLINSON. 

“Never mind who was my father, nor what was my native 
place ! My first ancestor was Tommy Linn (his heir became 

1 A phrase applied to a noted defaulter of the public money. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 83 

Tom Linn’s son), — yon have heard the ballad made in his 
praise, — 

“ ‘ Tommy Linn is a Scotchman born, 

His head is bald and his beard is shorn ; 

He had a cap made of a hare skin, — 

An elder man is Tommy Linn ! ’ 1 

“There was a sort of prophecy respecting my ancestor’s 
descendants darkly insinuated in the concluding stanza of 
this ballad : — 

“‘Tommy Linn, and his wife, and his wife’s mother, 

They all fell into the fire together ; 

They that lay undermost got a hot skin, — 

“We are not enough ! ” said Tommy Linn.’ ” 1 

“You see the prophecy: it is applicable both to gentlemen 
rogues and to moderate Whigs ; for both are undermost in the 
world, and both are perpetually bawling out, ‘ We are not 
enough ! ’ 

“I shall begin my own history by saying, I went to a North 
Country school, where I was noted for my aptness in learning, 
and my skill at ‘ prisoner’s base, ’ — upon my word I purposed 
no pun! I was intended for the Church. Wishing, betimes, 
to instruct myself in its ceremonies, I persuaded my school- 
master’s maidservant to assist me towards promoting a chris- 
tening. My father did not like this premature love for the 
sacred rites. He took me home; and wishing to give my 
clerical ardour a different turn, prepared me for writing ser- 
mons by reading me a dozen a day. I grew tired of this, 
strange as it may seem to you. ‘ Father, ’ said I, one morn- 
ing, ‘ it is no use talking; I will not go into the Church, — 
that ’s positive. Give me your blessing and a hundred 
pounds, and I ’ll go up to London and get a living instead 
of a curacy. ’ My father stormed ; but I got the better at last. 
I talked of becoming a private tutor; swore I had heard 
nothing was so easy, — the only things wanted were pupils ; 
and the only way to get them was to go to London and let 
my learning be known. My poor father, — well, he ’s gone, 

1 See Ritson’s “North-Country Chorister/’ 


84 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


and I am glad of it now! ” The speaker’s voice faltered. “I 
got the better, I say, and I came to town, where I had a rela- 
tion a bookseller. Through his interest, I wrote a book of 
Travels in Ethiopia for an earl’s son, who wanted to become 
a lion; and a Treatise on the Greek Particle, dedicated to 
the prime minister, for a dean, who wanted to become a 
bishop, — Greek being, next to interest, the best road to the 
mitre. These two achievements were liberally paid; so I 
took a lodging in a first floor, and resolved to make a bold 
stroke for a wife. What do you think I did? — nay, never 
guess; it would be hopeless. First, I went to the best 
tailor, and had my clothes sewn on my back; secondly, I 
got the peerage and its genealogies by heart; thirdly, I 
marched one night, with the coolest deliberation possible, 
into the house of a duchess, who was giving an immense 
rout! The newspapers had inspired me with this idea. I 
had read of the vast crowds which a lady ‘ at home ’ sought 
to win to her house. I had read of staircases impassable, and 
ladies carried out in a fit; and common-sense told me how 
impossible it was that the fair receiver should be acquainted 
with the legality of every importation. I therefore resolved 
to try my chance, and — entered the body of Augustus Tom- 
linson, as a piece of stolen goods. Faith! the first night I 
was shy, — I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of 
quality, whom I had heard announced as Lady Margaret 
Sinclair. Doubtless she had never been ogled before ; and she 
was evidently enraptured with my glances. The next night 

I read of a ball at the Countess of ’s. My heart beat as 

if I were going to be whipped ; but I plucked up courage, and 
repaired to her ladyship’s. There I again beheld the divine 
Lady Margaret; and observing that she turned yellow, by 
way of a blush, when she saw me, I profited by the port I had 
drunk as an encouragement to my entree, and lounging up in 
the most modish way possible, I reminded her ladyship of an 
introduction with which I said I had once been honoured 
at the Duke of Dashwell’s, and requested her hand for the 
next cotillion. Oh, Paul, fancy my triumph! The old 
damsel said, with a sigh, she remembered me very well, — 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


85 


ha, ha, ha! — and I carried her off to the cotillion like another 
Theseus bearing away a second Ariadne. Not to be prolix 
on this part of my life, I went night after night to balls and 
routs, for admission to which half the fine gentlemen in Lon- 
don would have given their ears. And I improved my time 
so well with Lady Margaret, who was her own mistress and 
had £5,000, — a devilish bad portion for some, but not to 
be laughed at by me, — that I began to think iclien the happy 
day should be fixed. Meanwhile, as Lady Margaret intro- 
duced me to some of her friends, and my lodgings were in 
a good situation, I had been honoured with some real invita- 
tions. The only two questions I ever was asked were (care- 
lessly), ‘ Was I the only son ? 1 and on my veritable answer 
‘Yes!* ‘What ' (this was more warmly put), — ‘what was 
my county? ’ Luckily my county was a wide one, — York- 
shire; and any of its inhabitants whom the fair interrogators 
might have questioned about me could only have answered, 
I was not in their part of it. 

“Well, Paul, I grew so bold by success that the devil one 
day put it into my head to go to a great dinner-party at the 
Duke of DashwelPs. I went, dined, — nothing happened; I 
came away, and the next morning I read in the papers, — 

“ ‘ Mysterious affair — person lately going about — first houses — most 
fashionable parties — nobody knows — Duke of Dashwell’s yesterday. 
Duke not like to make disturbance — as — royalty present .’ 1 

“The journal dropped from my hands. At that moment 
the girl of the house gave me a note from Lady Margaret, — 
alluded to the paragraph ; wondered who was ‘ The Stranger ; ’ 

hoped to see me that night at Lord A ’s, to whose party 

I said I had been asked; speak then more fully on those 
matters I had touched on ! — in short, dear Paul, a tender 
epistle! All great men are fatalists, — I am one now; fate 
made me a madman. In the very face of this ominous para- 
graph I mustered up courage, and went that night to Lord 

A ’s. The fact is, my affairs were in confusion, — I was 

greatly in debt. I knew it was necessary to finish my con* 

1 Fact. 


86 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


quest over Lady Margaret as soon as possible; and Lore] 

A ’s seemed the best place for the purpose. Nay, I 

thought delay so dangerous, after the cursed paragraph, that 
a day might unmask me, and it would be better therefore not 
to lose an hour in finishing the play of ‘ The Stranger ’ with 
the farce of ‘ The Honey Moon.’ Behold me then at Lord 

A ’s, leading off Lady Margaret to the dance. Behold me 

whispering the sweetest of things in her ear. Imagine her 
approving my suit, and gently chiding me for talking of 
Gretna Green. Conceive all this, my dear fellow, and just 
at the height of my triumph, dilate the eyes of your imagina- 
tion, and behold the stately form of Lord A , my noble 

host, marching up to me, while a voice that, though low and 
quiet as an evening breeze, made my heart sink into my shoes, 
said, ‘ I believe, sir, you have received no invitation from 
Lady A^ — ? ’ 

“Not a word could I utter, Paul, — not a word. Had it 
been the highroad instead of a ballroom, I could have talked 
loudly enough; but I was under a spell. ‘ Ehem! ’ I faltered 
at last, — ‘ e-h-e-m! Some mis-take, I — I — ’ There I 
stopped. 

“ ‘ Sir, ’ said the earl, regarding me with a grave sternness, 

‘ you had better withdraw. ’ 

Bless me! what’s all this?* cried Lady Margaret, drop- 
ping my palsied arm, and gazing on me as if she expected me 
to talk like a hero. 

U( Oh,’ said I, ‘ eh-e-m, eh-e-m, — I will exp — lain to-mor- 
row, — ehem, e-h-e-m.’ I made to the door; all the eyes 
in the room seemed turned into burning-glasses, and blistered 
the very skin on my face. I heard a gentle shriek, as I left 
the apartment, — Lady Margaret fainting, I suppose ! There 
ended my courtship and my adventures in ‘ the best society. ’ 
I felt melancholy at the ill-success of my scheme. You must 
allow it was a magnificent project. What moral courage ! I 
admire myself when I think of it. Without an introduction, 
without knowing a soul, to become, all by my own resolution, 
free of the finest houses in London, dancing with earls’ daugh- 
ters, and all but carrying off an earl’s daughter myself as my 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


87 


wife. If I had, the friends must have done something for 
me ; and Lady Margaret Tomlinson might perhaps have intro- 
duced the youthful genius of her Augustus to parliament or 
the ministry. Oh, what a fall was there! Yet, faith, ha, ha, 
ha! I could not help laughing, despite of my chagrin, when 
I remembered that for three months I had imposed on these 
‘ delicate exclusives, ’ and been literally invited by many of 
them, who would not have asked the younger sons of their 
own cousins, merely because I lived in a good street, avowed 
myself an only child, and talked of my property in Yorkshire! 
Ha, ha! how bitter the mercenary dupes must have felt when, 
the discovery was made! What a pill for the good matrons 
who had coupled my image with that of some filial Mary or 
Jane, — ha, ha, ha! The triumph was almost worth the mor- 
tification. However, as I said before, I fell melancholy on 
it, especially as my duns became menacing. So I went to 
consult with my cousin the bookseller. He recommended me 
to compose for the journals, and obtained me an offer. I went 
to work very patiently for a short time, and contracted some 
agreeable friendships with gentlemen whom I met at an ordi- 
nary in St. James’s. Still, my duns, though I paid them by 
driblets, were the plague of my life. I confessed as much to 
one of my new friends. ‘ Come to Bath with me, ’ quoth he, 
‘for a week, and you shall return as rich as a Jew.’ I 
accepted the offer, and went to Bath in my friend’s chariot. 
He took the name of Lord Hnnshunner, an Irish peer who had 
never been out of Tipperary, and was not therefore likely to 
be known at Bath. He took also a house for a year; filled it 
with wines, books, and a sideboard of plate. As he talked 
vaguely of setting up his younger brother to stand for the 
town at the next parliament, he bought these goods of the 
townspeople, in order to encourage their trade. I managed 
secretly to transport them to London and sell them; and as 
we disposed of them fifty per cent under cost price, our cus- 
tomers, the pawnbrokers, were not very inquisitive. We 
lived a jolly life at Bath for a couple of months, and de- 
parted one night, leaving our housekeeper to answer all 
interrogatories. We had taken the precaution to wear dis- 


88 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


guises, stuffed ourselves out, and changed the hues of our hair. 
My noble friend was an adept in these transformations ; and 
though the police did not sleep on the business, they never 
stumbled on us. I am especially glad we were not discovered, 
for I liked Bath excessively; and I intend to return there some 
of these days, and retire from the world — on an heiress! 

“Well, Paul, shortly after this adventure I made your 
acquaintance. I continued ostensibly my literary profession, 
but only as a mask for the labours I did not profess. A cir- 
cumstance obliged me to leave London rather precipitately. 
Lord Dunshunner joined me in Edinburgh. D — it, instead 
of doing anything there , we were done ! The veriest urchin 
that ever crept through the High Street is more than a match 
for the most scientific of Englishmen. With us it is art; 
with the Scotch it is nature. They pick your pockets with- 
out using their fingers for it; and they prevent reprisal by 
having nothing for you to pick. 

“We left Edinburgh with very long faces, and at Carlisle 
we found it necessary to separate. For my part, I went as a 
valet to a nobleman who had just lost his last servant at Car- 
lisle by a fever; my friend gave me the best of characters! 
My new master was a very clever man. He astonished peo- 
ple at dinner by the impromptus he prepared at breakfast ; in 
a word, he was a wit. He soon saw, for he was learned him- 
self, that I had received a classical education, and he em- 
ployed me in the confidential capacity of finding quotations 
for him. I classed these alphabetically and under three 
heads , — 4 Parliamentary, Literary, Dining-out . 9 These were 
again subdivided into ‘ Fine, ’ 4 Learned, ? and 4 Jocular ; ’ so that 
my master knew at once where to refer for genius, wisdom, 
and wit. He was delighted with my management of his 
intellects. In compliment to him, I paid more attention to 
politics than I had done before; for he was a 4 great Whig/ 
and uncommonly liberal in everything — but money! Hence, 
Paul, the origin of my political principles; and I thank 
Heaven there is not now a rogue in England who is a better 
— that is to say, more of a moderate — Whig than your hum- 
ble servant! I continued with him nearly a year. He dis* 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


89 


charged me for a fault worthy of my genius: other servants 
may lose the watch or the coat of their master; I went at 
nobler game, and lost him — his ptrivate character /” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Why, I was enamoured of a lady who would not have 
looked at me as Mr. Tomlinson; so I took my master’s 
clothes and occasionally his carriage, and made love to my 

nymph as Lord . Her vanity made her indiscreet. The 

Tory papers got hold of it; and my master, in a change of 
ministers, was declared by George the Third to be ‘too gay 
for a Chancellor of the Exchequer.’ An old gentleman who 
had had fifteen children by a wife like a Gorgon, was chosen 
instead of my master; and although the new minister was a 
fool in his public capacity, the moral public were perfectly 
content with him, because of his 'private virtues ! 

“ My master was furious, made the strictest inquiry, found 
me out, and turned me out too! 

“ A Whig not in place has an excuse for disliking the Con- 
stitution. My distress almost made me a republican; but, 
true to my creed, I must confess that I would only have 
levelled upwards. I especially disaffected the inequality of 
riches; I looked moodily on every carriage that passed; I 
even frowned like a second Catiline at the steam of a gentle- 
man’s kitchen! My last situation had not been lucrative; I 
had neglected my perquisites, in my ardour for politics. My 
master, too, refused to give me a character : who would take 
me without one? 

“ I was asking myself this melancholy question one morn- 
ing, when I suddenly encountered one of the fine friends I 
had picked up at my old haunt, the ordinary, in St. James’s. 
His name was Pepper.” \ 

“Pepper! ” cried Paul. 

Without heeding the exclamation, Tomlinson continued: — 

“We went to a tavern and drank a bottle together. Wine 
made me communicative; it also opened my comrade’s heart. 
He asked me to take a ride with him that night towards 
Hounslow. I did so, and found a purse.” 

“ How fortunate ! Where ? ” 


90 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“In a gentleman’s pocket. I was so pleased with my luck 
that I went the same road twice a week, in order to see if 1 
could pick up any more purses. Fate favoured me, and 1 
lived for a long time the life of the blessed. Oh, Paul, you 
know not — you know not what a glorious life is that of a 
highwayman; but you shall taste it one of these days, — you 
shall, on my honour. 

“I now lived with a club of honest fellows. We called 
ourselves ‘The Exclusives,’ — for we were mighty reserved in 
our associates, and only those who did business on a grand 
scale were admitted into our set. For my part, with all my 
love for my profession, I liked ingenuity still better than 
force, and preferred what the vulgar call swindling, even to 
the highroad. On an expedition of this sort, I rode once into 
a country town, and saw a crowd assembled in one corner; I 
joined it, and — guess my feelings ! — beheld my poor friend 
Viscount Dunshunner just about to be hanged! I rode off as 
fast as I could, — I thought I saw Jack Ketch at my heels. 
My horse threw me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone. 
In the confinement that ensued gloomy ideas floated before 
me. I did not like to be hanged ; so I reasoned against my 
errors, and repented. I recovered slowly, returned to town, 
and repaired to my cousin the bookseller. To say truth, I 
had played him a little trick: collected some debts of his by a 
mistake, — very natural in the confusion incident on my dis- 
tresses. However, he was extremely unkind about it; and 
the mistake, natural as it was, had cost me his acquaintance. 

“I went now to him with the penitential aspect of the 
prodigal son ; and, faith, he would have not made a bad repre- 
sentation of the fatted calf about to be killed on my return, 
— so corpulent looked he, and so dejected! ‘Graceless rep- 
robate! ’ he began, ‘your poor father is dead! ’ I was exceed- 
ingly shocked; but — never fear, Paul, I am not about to be 
pathetic. My father had divided his fortune among all his 
children; my share was £500. The possession of this sum 
made my penitence seem much more sincere in the eyes of my 
good cousin ; and after a very pathetic scene, he took me once 
more into favour. I now consulted with him as to the best 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


91 


method of laying out my capital and recovering my character. 
We could not devise any scheme at the first conference; hut 
the second time I saw him, my cousin said with a cheerful 
countenance: ‘Cheer up, Augustus, I have got thee a situa- 
tion. Mr. Asgrave the hanker will take thee as a clerk. He 
is a most worthy man ; and having a vast deal of learning, he 
will respect thee for thy acquirements. ’ The same day I was 
introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who was a little man with a fine, 
bald, benevolent head ; and after a long conversation which he 
was pleased to hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers. 
I don’t know how it was, but by little and little I rose in my 
paster’s good graces. I propitiated him, I fancy, by dispos- 
ing of my £500 according to his advice; he laid it out for me, 
on what he said was famous security, on a landed estate. Mr. 
Asgrave was of social habits, — he had a capital house and 
excellent wines. As he was not very particular in his com- 
pany, nor ambitious of visiting the great, he often suffered 
me to make one of his table, and was pleased to hold long 
arguments with me about the ancients. I soon found out that 
my master was a great moral philosopher; and being myself 
in weak health, sated with the ordinary pursuits of the world, 
in which my experience had forestalled my years, and natu- 
rally of a contemplative temperament, I turned my attention 
to the moral studies which so fascinated my employer. I 
read through nine shelves full of metaphysicians, and knew 
exactly the points in which those illustrious thinkers quar- 
relled with each other, to the great advance of the science. 
My master and I used to hold many a long discussion about 
the nature of good and evil; as, by help of his benevolent 
forehead and a clear dogged voice, he always seemed to our 
audience to be the wiser and better man of the two, he was 
very well pleased with our disputes. This gentleman had an 
only daughter, — an awful shrew, with a face like a hatchet : 
but philosophers overcome personal defects; and thinking 
only of the good her wealth might enable me to do to my 
fellow-creatures, I secretly made love to her. You will say 
that was playing my master but a scurvy trick for his kind- 
ness. Not at all; my master himself had convinced me that 


92 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


there was no such virtue as gratitude. It was an error of 
vulgar moralists. I yielded to his arguments, and at length 
privately espoused his daughter. The day after this took 
place, he summoned me to his study. ‘So, Augustus,’ said 
he, very mildly, ‘you have married my daughter: nay, never 
look confused; I saw a long time ago that you were resolved 
to do so, and I was very glad of it. 5 

“I attempted to falter out something like thanks. ‘Never 
interrupt me!’ said he. ‘I had two reasons for being glad, 
— first, because my daughter was the plague of my life, and I 
wanted some one to take her off my hands ; secondly, because 
I required your assistance on a particular point, and I could 
not venture to ask it of any one but my son-in-law. In fine, 
I wish to take you into partnership ! ’ 

“‘Partnership!’ cried I, falling on my knees. ‘Noble, 
generous man ! ’ 

“‘Stay a bit,’ continued my father-in-law. ‘What funds do 
you think requisite for carrying on a bank? You look puz- 
zled! Not a shilling! You will put in just as much as I do. 
You will put in rather more; for you once put in £500, which 
has been spent long ago. I don’t put in a shilling of my own. 
I live on my clients, and I very willingly offer you half of 
them ! ’ 

“Imagine, dear Paul, my astonishment, my dismay! I saw 
myself married to a hideous shrew, — son-in-law to a penni- 
less scoundrel, and cheated out of my whole fortune ! Com- 
pare this view of the question with that which had blazed on 
me when I contemplated being son-in-law to the rich Mr. 
Asgrave. I stormed at first. Mr. Asgrave took up Bacon 
‘On the Advancement of Learning,’ and made no reply till I 
was cooled by explosion. You will perceive that when pas- 
sion subsided, I necessarily saw that nothing was left for me 
but adopting my father-in-law’s proposal. Thus, by the 
fatality which attended me at the very time I meant to 
reform, I was forced into scoundrelism, and 1 was driven into 
defrauding a vast number of persons by the accident of being 
son-in-law to a great moralist. As Mr. Asgrave was an indo- 
lent man, who passed his mornings in speculations on virtue. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


93 


I was made the active partner. I spent the day at the count- 
ing-house; and when I came home for recreation, my wife 
scratched my eyes out.” 

“ But were you never recognized as ‘the stranger ’ or ‘the 
adventurer 9 in your new capacity?” 

“No; for of course I assumed, in all my changes, both 
aliases and disguises. And, to tell you the truth, my mar- 
riage so altered me that, what with a snuff-coloured coat and 
a brown scratch wig, with a pen in my right ear, I looked the 
very picture of staid respectability. My face grew an inch 
longer every day. Nothing is so respectable as a long face; 
and a subdued expression of countenance is the surest sign of 
commercial prosperity*. Well, we went on splendidly enough 
for about a year. Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved in 
philosophy. You have no idea how a scolding wife sublimes 
and rarefies one’s intellect. Thunder clears the air, you 
know! At length, unhappily for my fame (for I contem- 
plated a magnificent moral history of man, which, had she 
lived a year longer, I should have completed), my wife died 
in child-bed. My father-in-law and I were talking over the 
event, and finding fault with civilization for the enervating 
habits by which women die of their children instead of bring- 
ing them forth without being even conscious of the circum- 
stance, when a bit of paper, sealed awry, was given to my 
partner. He looked over it, finished the discussion, and 
then told me our bank had stopped payment. ‘ Now, Augus- 
tus, 9 said he, lighting his pipe with the bit of paper, ‘ you see 
the good of having nothing to lose. ’ 

“We did not pay quite sixpence in the pound; but my 
partner was thought so unfortunate that the British public 
raised a subscription for him, and he retired on an annuity, 
greatly respected and very much compassionated. As I had 
not been so well known as a moralist, and had not the prepos- 
sessing advantage of a bald, benevolent head, nothing was done 
for me, and I was turned once more on the wide world, to 
moralize on the vicissitudes of fortune. My cousin the book- 
seller was no more, and his son cut me. I took a garret in 
Warwick Court, and with a few books, my only, consolation, 


94 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


I endeavoured to nerve my mind to the future. It was at this 
time, Paul, that my studies really availed me. I meditated 
much, and I became a true philosopher, namely, a practical 
one. My actions were henceforth regulated by principle ; and 
at some time or other, I will convince you that the road of 
true morals never avoids the pockets of your neighbour. So 
soon as my mind had made the grand discovery which Mr. 
Asgrave had made before me, that one should live according 
to a system, — for if you do wrong, it is then your system 
that errs, not you, — I took to the road, without any of those 
stings of conscience which had hitherto annoyed me in such 
adventures. I formed one of a capital knot of 1 Free Agents, ? 
whom I will introduce to you some day or other, and I soon 
rose to distinction among them. But about six weeks ago, 
not less than formerly preferring byways to highways, I 
attempted to possess myself of a carriage, and sell it at dis- 
count. I was acquitted on the felony, but sent hither by 
Justice Burnflat on the misdemeanour. Thus far, my young 
friend, hath as yet proceeded the life of Augustus Tomlinson.” 

The history of this gentleman made a deep impression on 
Paul. The impression was strengthened by the conversations 
subsequently holden with Augustus. That worthy was a dan- 
gerous and subtle persuader. He had really read a good deal 
of history, and something of morals; and he had an ingenious 
way of defending his rascally practices by syllogisms from the 
latter, and examples from the former. These theories he 
clenched, as it were, by a reference to the existing politics 
of the day. Cheaters of the public, on false pretences, he 
was pleased to term “ moderate Whigs ; ” bullying demanders 
of your purse were “high Tories; ” and thieving in gangs was 
“the effect of the spirit of patty.” There was this difference 
between Augustus Tomlinson and Long Ned, — Ned was the 
acting knave, Augustus the reasoning one ; and we may see 
therefore, by a little reflection, that Tomlinson was a far more 
perilous companion than Pepper, — for showy theories are al- 
ways more seductive to the young and clever than suasive exam- 
ples, and the vanity of the youthful makes them better pleased 
by being convinced of a thing than by being enticed to it. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


95 


A day or two after the narrative of Mr. Tomlinson, Paul 
was again visited by Mrs. Lobkins, — for the regulations 
against frequent visitors were not then so strictly enforced 
as we understand them to be now; and the good dame came 
to deplore the ill-success of her interview with Justice 
Burntlat. 

We spare the tender-hearted reader a detail of the affecting 
interview that ensued. Indeed, it was but a repetition of 
the one we have before narrated. We shall only say, as a 
proof of Paul’s tenderness of heart, that when he took leave 
of the good matron, and bade “God bless her,” his voice fal- 
tered, and the tears stood in his eyes, — just as they were 
wont to do in the eyes of George the Third, when that excel- 
lent monarch was pleased graciously to encore “ God save the 
King!” 

“I’ll be hanged,” soliloquized our hero, as he slowly bent 
his course towards the subtle Augustus, — “I’ll be hanged 
(humph! the denunciation is prophetic), if I don’t feel as 
grateful to the old lady for her care of me as if she had never 
ill-used me. As for my parents, I believe I have little to be 
grateful for or proud of in that quarter. My poor mother, by 
all accounts, seems scarcely to have had even the brute virtue 
of maternal tenderness; and in all human likelihood I shall 
never know whether I had one father or fifty. But what 
matters it? I rather like the better to be independent; and, 
after all, what do nine tenths of us ever get from our parents 
but an ugly name, and advice which, if we follow, we are 
wretched, and if we neglect, we are disinherited?” 

Comforting himself with these thoughts, which perhaps 
took their philosophical complexion from the conversations 
he had lately held with Augustus, and which broke off into 
the muttered air of — 

“ Why should we quarrel for riches? ” 

Paul repaired to his customary avocations. 

In the third week of our hero’s captivity Tomlinson com- 
municated to him a plan of escape that had occurred to his 
sagacious brain. In the yard appropriated to the amusements 


96 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


of the gentlemen “misdemeaning,” there was a water-pipe 
that, skirting the wall, passed over the door through which 
every morning the pious captives passed in their way to the 
chapel. By this Tomlinson proposed to escape; for to the 
pipe which reached from the door to the wall, in a slanting 
and easy direction, there was a sort of skirting-board; and a 
dexterous and nimble man might readily, by the help of this 
board, convey himself along the pipe, until the progress of 
that useful conductor (which was happily very brief) was 
stopped by the summit of the wall, where it found a sequel in 
another pipe, that descended to the ground on the opposite 
side of the wall. Now, on this opposite side was the garden 
of the prison ; in this garden was a watchman, and this watch- 
man was the hobgoblin of Tomlinson’s scheme, — “For sup- 
pose us safe in the garden,” said he, “what shall we do with 
this confounded fellow?” 

“But that is not all,” added Paul; “for even were there no 
watchman, there is a terrible wall, which I noted especially 
last week, when we were set to, work in the garden, and which 
has no pipe, save a perpendicular one, that a man must have 
the legs of a fly to be able to climb ! ” 

“Nonsense!” returned Tomlinson; “I will show you how 
to climb the stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but 
the coast clear. It is the watchman, the watchman, we 
must — ” 

“What?” asked Paul, observing his comrade did not con- 
clude the sentence. 

It was some time before the sage Augustus replied; he then 
said in a musing tone, — 

“ I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consis- 
tent with virtue, and that strict code of morals by which all 
my actions are regulated, to — slay the watchman ! ” 

“ Good heavens ! ” cried Paul, horror-stricken. 

“And I have decided,” continued Augustus, solemnly, with- 
out regard to the exclamation, “that the action would be per- 
fectty justifiable ! ” 

“Villain!” exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of 
the stone box — for it was night — in wjiich they were cooped. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


97 


“But,” pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and 
whose voice, sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young’s in 
the famous monologue in “Hamlet,” denoted that he heeded 
not the uncourteous interruption, — “ but opinion does not 
always influence conduct ; and although it may be virtuous 
to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to do it. I 
trust in my future history I shall not by discerning moralists 
be too severely censured for a weakness for which my physi- 
cal temperament is alone to blame ! ” 

Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before 
Paul could be reconciled to further conversation with Augus- 
tus; and it was only from the belief that the moralist had 
leaned to the jesting vein that he at length resumed the 
consultation. 

The conspirators did not, however, bring their scheme that 
night to any ultimate decision. The next day Augustus, 
Paul, and some others of the company were set to work in 
the garden; and Paul then observed that his friend, wheeling 
a barrow close by the spot where the watchman stood, over- 
turned its contents. The watchman was good-natured enough 
to assist him in refilling the barrow ; and Tomlinson profited 
so well by the occasion that that night he informed Paul that 
they would have nothing to dread from the watchman’s vigi- 
lance. “He has promised,” said Augustus, “for certain con- 
si-de-ra-tions, to allow me to knock him down; he has also 
promised to be so much hurt as not to be able to move until 
we are over the wall. Our main difficulty now, then, is the 
first step, — namely, to climb the pipe unperceived! ” 

“As to that,” said Paul, who developed, through the whole 
of the scheme, organs of sagacity, boldness, and invention 
which charmed his friend, and certainly promised well for his 
future career, — “as to that, I think we may manage the first 
ascent with less danger than you imagine. The mornings of 
late have been very foggy; they are almost dark at the hour 
we go to chapel. Let you and I close the file : the pipe passes 
just above the door; our hands, as we have tried, can reach 
it; and a spring of no great agility will enable us to raise our- 
selves up to a footing on the pipe and the skirting-board. 


98 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


The climbing then is easy ; and what with the dense fog and 
our own quickness, I think we shall have little difficulty in 
gaining the garden. The only precautions we need use are, 
to wait for a very dark morning, and to be sure that we are 
the last of the file, so that no one behind may give the 
alarm — ” 

“ Or attempt to follow our example, and spoil the pie by a 
superfluous plum ! ” added Augustus. “ You counsel admira- 
bly ; and one of these days, if you are not hung in the mean 
while, will, I venture to auger, be a great logician.” 

The next morning was clear and frosty; but the day after 
was, to use Tomlinson’s simile, “as dark as if all the negroes 
of Africa had been stewed down into air.” “You might have 
cut the fog with a knife,” as the proverb says. Paul and 
Augustus could not even see how significantly each looked at 
the other. 

It was a remarkable trait of the daring temperament of the 
former, that, young as he was, it was fixed that he should 
lead the attempt. At the hour, then, for chapel the prisoners 
passed as usual through the door. When it came to Paul’s 
turn he drew himself by his hands to the pipe, and then creep- 
ing along its sinuous course, gained the y wall before he had 
even fetched his breath. Rather more clumsily, Augustus 
followed his friend’s example. Once his foot slipped, and 
he was all but over. He extended his hands involuntarily, 
and caught Paul by the leg. Happily our hero had then 
gained the wall, to which he was clinging; and for once in a 
way, one rogue raised himself without throwing over another. 
Behold Tomlinson and Paul now seated for an instant on the 
wall to recover breath; the latter then, — the descent to the 
ground was not very great, — letting his body down by his 
hands, dropped into the garden. 

“Hurt?” asked the prudent Augustus, in a hoarse whisper, 
before he descended from his “bad eminence,” being even 
willing — 

“ To bear those ills he had, 

Than fly to others that he knew not of ” — 

without taking every previous precaution in his power. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


99 


“ No ! ” was the answer in the same voice, and Augustus 
dropped. 

So soon as this latter worthy had recovered the shock of his 
fall, he lost not a moment in running to the other end of the 
garden. Paul followed. By the way Tomlinson stopped at a 
heap of rubbish, and picked up an immense stone. When they 
came to the part of the wall they had agreed to scale, they 
found the watchman, — about whom they needed not, by the 
by, to have concerned themselves; for had it not been 
arranged that he was to have met them, the deep fog would 
have effectually prevented him from seeing them. This faith- 
ful guardian Augustus knocked down, not with a stone, but 
with ten guineas ; he then drew forth from his dress a thickish 
cord, which he procured some days before from the turnkey, 
and fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over 
the wall. Now the wall had (as walls of great strength 
mostly have) an overhanging sort of battlement on either 
side ; and the stone, when flung over and drawn to the tether 
of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched 
against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were 
fastened to the wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to 
draw himself up to the top of the barrier. He performed 
this feat with gymnastic address, like one who had often 
practised it; albeit the discreet adventurer had not mentioned 
in his narrative to Paul any previous occasion for the prac- 
tice. As soon as he had gained the top of the wall, he threw 
down the cord to his companion, and, in consideration of 
PauPs inexperience in that manner of climbing, gave the 
fastening of the rope an additional security by holding it 
himself. With slowness and labour Paul hoisted himself 
up ; and then, by transferring the stone to the other side of 
the wall, where it made of course a similar hitch, our two 
adventurers were enabled successively to slide down, and 
consummate their escape from the House of Correction. 

“ Follow me now! ” said Augustus, as he took to his heels; 
and Paul pursued him through a labyrinth of alleys and lanes, 
through which he shot and dodged with a variable and shift- 
ing celerity that, had not Paul kept close upon him, would 


100 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


very soon, combined with the fog, have snatched him from 
the eyes of his young ally. Happily the immaturity of the 
morning, the obscurity of the streets passed through, and 
above all, the extreme darkness of the atmosphere, prevented 
that detection and arrest which their prisoner’s garb would 
otherwise have insured them. At length they found them- 
selves in the fields ; and skulking along hedges, and diligently 
avoiding the highroad, they continued to fly onward, until 
they had advanced several miles into “the bowels of the 
land.” At that time “the bowels” of Augustus Tomlinson 
began to remind him of their demands; and he accordingly 
suggested the desirability of their seizing the first peasant 
they encountered, and causing him to exchange clothes with 
one of the fugitives, who would thus be enabled to enter a 
public-house and provide for their mutual necessities. Paul 
agreed to this proposition, and accordingly they watched their 
opportunity and caught a ploughman. Augustus stripped him 
of his frock, hat, and worsted stockings ; and Paul, hardened 
by necessity and companionship, helped to tie the poor plough- 
man to a tree. They then continued their progress for about 
an hour, and, as the shades of evening fell around them, they 
discovered a public-house. Augustus entered, and returned 
in a few minutes laden with bread and cheese, and a bottle of 
beer. Prison fare cures a man of daintiness, and the two 
fugitives dined on these homely viands with considerable 
complacency. They then resumed their journey, and at 
length, wearied with exertion, they arrived at a lonely hay- 
stack, where they resolved to repose for an hour or two. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


101 


CHAPTER X. 

Unlike the ribald, whose licentious jest 
Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest, 

From wealth and grandeur easy to descend, 

Thou joy’st to lose the master in the friend. 

We round thy board the cheerful menials see, 

Gay with the smile of bland equality ; 

No social care the gracious lord disdains ; 

Love prompts to love, and reverence reverence gains. 

Translation o/Lucan to Piso, 
Prefixed to the Twelfth Paper of H The Rambler. 

Coyly shone down the bashful stars upon our adventurers, 
as, after a short nap behind the haystack, they stretched 
themselves, and looking at each other, burst into an invol- 
untary and hilarious laugh at the prosperous termination of 
their exploit. 

Hitherto they had been too occupied, first by their flight, 
then by hunger, then by fatigue, for self-gratulation ; now 
they rubbed their hands, and joked like runaway schoolboys 
at their escape. 

By degrees their thoughts turned from the past to the 
future; and “Tell me, my dear fellow,” said Augustus, “what 
you intend to do. I trust I have long ago convinced you that 
it is no sin ‘to serve our friends 1 and to ‘ be true to our party; ’ 
and therefore, I suppose, you will decide upon taking to the 
road.” 

“It is very odd,” answered Paul, “that I should have any 
scruples left after your lectures on the subject; but I own to 
you frankly that, somehow or other, I have doubts whether 
thieving be really the honestest profession I could follow.” 

“Listen to me, Paul,” answered Augustus; and his reply is 
not unworthy of notice. “ All crime and all excellence depend 
upon a good choice of words. I see you look puzzled; I will 
explain. If you take money from the public, and say you 


102 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


have robbed, yon have indubitably committed a great crime; 
but if you do the same, and say you have been relieving the 
necessities of the poor, you have done an excellent action. If, 
in afterwards dividing this money with your companions, you 
say you have been sharing booty, you have committed an 
offence against the laws of your country ; but if you observe 
that you have been sharing with your friends the gains of your 
industry, you have been performing one of the noblest actions 
of humanity. To knock a man on the head is neither virtu- 
ous nor guilty, but it depends upon the language applied to 
the action to make it murder or glory . 1 Why not say, then, 
that you have testified the courage of a hero, rather than the 
atrocity of a ruffian? This is perfectly clear, is it not?” 

“It seems so,” answered Paul. 

“ It is so self-evident that it is the way all governments are 
carried on. Wherefore, my good Paul, we only do what all 
other legislators do. W T e are never rogues so long as we call 
ourselves honest fellows, and we never commit a crime so long 
as we can term it a virtue. What say you now? ” 

Paul smiled, and was silent ; a few moments before he 
replied: “There is very little doubt but that you are wrong; 
yet if you are, so are all the rest of the world. It is of no 
use to be the only white sheep of the flock. Wherefore, my 
dear Tomlinson, I will in future be an excellent citizen, 
relieve the necessities of the poor, and share the gains of my 
industry with my friends.” 

“ Bravo ! ” cried Tomlinson. “ And now that that is settled, 
the sooner you are inaugurated the better. Since the starlight 
has shone forth, I see that I am in a place I ought to be very 
well acquainted with; or, if you like to be suspicious, you 
may believe that I have brought you purposely in this direc- 

1 We observe in a paragraph from an American paper, copied without 
comment into the “ Morning Chronicle,” a singular proof of the truth of 
Tomlinson’s philosophy ! “ Mr. Rowland Stephenson,” so runs the extract, 

“the celebrated English banker, has just purchased a considerable tract ot' 
land,” etc. Most philosophical of paragraphists ! “ Celebrated English ban- 
ker !” — that sentence is a better illustration of verbal fallacies than all Ben- 
tham’s treatises put together. “ Celebrated l” O Mercury, what a dexterous 
epithet ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


103 


tion. But first let me ask if you feel any great desire to pass 
the night by this haystack, or whether you would like a song 
and the punchbowl almost as much as the open air, with the 
chance of being eaten up in a pinch of hay by some strolling 
cow.” 

“You may conceive my choice,” answered Paul. 

“Well, then, there is an excellent fellow near here, who 
keeps a public-house, and is a firm ally and generous patron 
of the lads of the cross. At certain periods they hold weekly 
meetings at his house : this is one of the nights. What say 
you? Shall I introduce you to the club?” 

“I shall be very glad if they will admit me,” returned Paul, 
whom many and conflicting thoughts rendered laconic. 

“Oh! no fear of that, under my auspices. To tell you the 
truth, though we are a tolerant set, we welcome every new 
proselyte with enthusiasm. But are you tired? ” 

“A little; the house is not far, you say?” 

“About a mile off,” answered Tomlinson. “Lean on me.” 

Our wanderers now, leaving the haystack, struck across 
part of Finchley Common ; for the abode of the worthy publi- 
can was felicitously situated, and the scene in which his 
guests celebrated their festivities was close by that on which 
they often performed their exploits. 

As they proceeded, Paul questioned his friend touching 
the name and character of “mine host;” and the all-know- 
ing Augustus Tomlinson answered him, Quaker-like, by a 
question, — 

“Have you never heard of Gentleman George?” 

“What! the noted head of a flash public-house in the coun- 
try? To be sure I have, often; my poor nurse, Dame Lob- 
kins, used to say he was the best-spoken man in the trade! ” 

“Ay, so he is still. In his youth, George was a very hand- 
some fellow, but a little too fond of his lass and his bottle to 
please his father, — a very staid old gentleman, who walked 
about on Sundays in a bob-wig and a gold-headed cane, and 
was a much better farmer on week-days than he was head of 
a public-house. George used to be a remarkably smart-dressed 
fellow, and so he is to this day. He has a great deal of wit, 


i 


104 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


is a very good whist-player, has a capital cellar, and is so 
fond of seeing his friends drunk, that he bought some time 
ago a large pewter measure in which six men can stand up- 
right. The girls, or rather the old women, to which last he 
used to be much more civil of the two, always liked him; they 
say nothing is so fine as his fine speeches, and they give him 
the title of ‘ Gentleman George.’ He is a nice, kind-hearted 
man in many things. Pray Heaven we shall have no cause 
to miss him when he departs! But, to tell you the truth, he 
takes more than his share of our common purse.” 

“What! is he avaricious?” 

“ Quite the reverse ; but he ’s so cursedly fond of building, 
he invests all his money (and wants us to invest all ours) in 
houses; and there’s one confounded dog of a bricklayer who 
runs him up terrible bills, — a fellow called ‘ Cunning Nat,’ 
who is equally adroit in spoiling ground and improving 
ground rent.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Ah! thereby hangs a tale. But we are near the place 
now; you will see a curious set.” 

As Tomlinson said this, the pair approached a house stand- 
ing alone, and seemingly without any other abode in the vicin- 
ity. It was of curious and grotesque shape, painted white, 
with a Gothic chimney, a Chinese sign-post (on which was 
depicted a gentleman fishing, with the words “The Jolly 
Angler ” written beneath), and a porch that would have been 
Grecian if it had not been Dutch. It stood in a little field, 
with a hedge behind it, and the common in front. Augustus 
stopped at the door; and while he paused, bursts of laughter 
rang cheerily within. 

“Ah, the merry boys!” he muttered; “I long to be with 
them ; ” and then with his clenched fist he knocked four times 
on the door. There was a sudden silence which lasted about 
a minute, and was broken by a voice within, asking who was 
there. Tomlinson answered by some cabalistic word; the 
door was opened, and a little boy presented himself. 

“Well, my lad,” said Augustus, “and how is your master? 
Stout and hearty, if I may judge by his voice.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


105 


“ Ay, Master Tommy, ay, he ’s boosing away at a fine rate, 
in the back-parlour, with Mr. Pepper and Fighting Attie, and 
half-a-score more of them. He ’ll be woundy glad to see you, 
I ’ll be bound.” 

“Show this gentleman into the bar,” rejoined Augustus, 
“while I go and pay my respects to honest Geordie.” 

The boy made a sort of a bow, and leading our hero into the 
bar, consigned him to the care of Sal, a buxom barmaid, who 
reflected credit on the taste of the landlord, and who received 
Paul with marked distinction and a gill of brandy. 

Paul had not long to play the amiable, before Tomlinson 
rejoined him with the information that Gentleman George 
would be most happy to see him in the back-parlour, and 
that he would there find an old friend in the person of Mr. 
Pepper. 

“What! is he here?” cried Paul. “The sorry knave, to let 
me be caged in his stead! ” 

“Gently, gently; no misapplication of terms ! ” said Augus- 
tus. “That was not knavery; that was prudence, the greatest 
of all virtues, and the rarest. But come along, and Pepper 
shall explain to-morrow.” 

Threading a gallery or passage, Augustus preceded our 
hero, opened a door, and introduced him into a long low 
apartment, where sat, round a table spread with pipes and 
liquor, some ten or a dozen men, while at the top of the table, 
in an armchair, presided Gentleman George. That dignitary 
was a portly and comely gentleman, with a knowing look, 
and a Welsh wig, worn, as the “Morning Chronicle” says of 
his Majesty’s hat, “in a degage manner, on one side.” Being 
afflicted with the gout, his left foot reclined on a stool ; and 
the attitude developed, despite of a lamb’s-wool stocking, the 
remains of an exceedingly good leg. 

As Gentleman George was a person of majestic dignity 
among the Knights of the Cross, we trust we shall not be 
thought irreverent in applying a few of the words by which 
the aforesaid “Morning Chronicle ” depicted his Majesty on 
the day he laid the first stone of his father’s monument to the 
description of Gentleman George. 


106 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“ He had on a handsome blue coat and a white waistcoat ; ” 
moreover, “he laughed most good-humouredly,” as, turning 
to Augustus Tomlinson, he saluted him with, — 

“So this is the youngster you present to us? Welcome to 
the Jolly Angler! Give us thy hand, young sir; I shall be 
happy to blow a cloud with thee.” 

“With all due submission,” said Mr. Tomlinson, “I think 
it may first be as well to introduce my pupil and friend to his 
future companions.” 

“You speak like a leary cove,” cried Gentleman George, 
still squeezing our hero’s hand; and turning round in his 
elbow-chair, he pointed to each member, as he severally intro- 
duced his guests to Paul. 

“Here,” said he, — “here ’s a fine chap at my right hand” 
(the person thus designated was a thin military-looking figure, 
in a shabby riding-frock, and with a commanding, bold, aqui- 
line countenance, a little the worse for wear), — “ here ’s a 
fine chap for you ! Fighting Attie we calls him ; he ’s a devil 
on the road. 4 Halt, — deliver, — - must and shall, — can’t and 
sha’ n’t, — do as I bid you, or go to the devil ! ’ That ’s all 
Fighting Attie’s palaver; and, ’Sdeath, it has a wonderful 
way of coming to the point! A famous cull is my friend 
Attie, — an old soldier, — has seen the world, and knows 
what is what; has lots of gumption, and devil a bit of blar- 
ney. Howsomever, the highflyers doesn’t like him; and 
when he takes people’s money, he need not be quite so cross 
about it. Attie, let me introduce a new pal to you.” Paul 
made his bow. 

“ Stand at ease, man!” quoth the veteran, without taking 
the pipe from his mouth. 

Gentleman George then continued ; and after pointing out 
four or five of the company (among whom our hero discovered, 
to his surprise, his old friends Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and Mr. 
William Howard Russell), came, at length, to one with a very 
red face and a lusty frame of body. “That gentleman,” said 
he, is Scarlet Jem; a dangerous fellow for a press, though 
he says he likes robbing alone now, for a general press is not 
half such a good thing as it used to be formerly. You have 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


107 


no idea what a hand at disguising himself Scarlet Jem is. He 
has an old wig which he generally does business in ; and you 
would not go for to know him again when he conceals himself 
under the wig. Oh, he’s a precious rogue, is Scarlet Jem! 
As for the cove on t’other side,” continued the host of the 
Jolly Angler, pointing to Long Ned, “all I can say of him, 
good, had, or indifferent, is that he has an unkimmon fine 
head of hair; and now, youngster, as you knows him, s’pose 
you goes and sits by him, and he ’ll introduce you to the rest; 
for, split my wig ! ” (Gentleman George was a bit of a swearer) 
“if I be n’t tired; and so here ’s to your health; and if so be 
as your name ’s Paul, may you always rob Peter 1 in order to 
pay Paul ! ” 

This witticism of mine host’s being exceedingly well 
received, Paul went, amidst the general laughter, to take 
possession of the vacant seat beside Long Ned. That tall 
gentleman, who had hitherto been cloud-compelling (as Homer 
calls Jupiter) in profound silence, now turned to Paul with 
the warmest cordiality, declared himself overjoyed to meet 
his old friend once more, and congratulated him alike on his 
escape from Bridewell and his admission to the councils of 
Gentleman George. But Paul, mindful of that exertion of 
“ prudence ” on the part of Mr. Pepper by which he had been 
left to his fate and the mercy of Justice Burnflat, received his 
advances very sullenly. This coolness so incensed Ned, who 
was naturally choleric, that he turned his back on our hero, 
and being of an aristocratic spirit, muttered something about 
“upstart, and vulgar clyfakers being admitted to the company 
of swell tobymen.” This murmur called all Paul’s blood into 
his cheek; for though he had been punished as a clyfaker (or 
pickpocket), nobody knew better than Long Ned whether or 
not he was innocent; and a reproach from him came therefore 
with double injustice and severity. In his wrath he seized 
Mr. Pepper by the ear, and telling him he was a shabby 
scoundrel, challenged him to fight. 

So pleasing an invitation not being announced sotto voce f 
but in a tone suited to the importance of the proposi* 

1 Peter, a portmanteau. 


108 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


tion, every one around heard it; and before Long Ned 
could answer, the full voice of Gentleman George thundered 
forth, — 

“Keep the peace there, you youngster! What! are you 
just admitted into our merry-makings, and must you be 
wrangling already? Harkye, gemmen, I have been plagued 
enough with your quarrels before now ; and the first cove as 
breaks the present quiet of the Jolly Angler shall be turned 
out neck and crop, — sha’ n’t he, Attie?” 

“ Right about, march ! ” said the hero. 

“Ay, that’s the word, Attie,” said Gentleman George. 
“And now, Mr. Pepper, if there be any ill blood ’twixt you 
and the lad there, wash it away in a bumper of bingo, and 
let ’s hear no more whatsomever about it.” 

“I ’m willing,” cried Long Ned, with the deferential air of 
a courtier, and holding out his hand to Paul. Our hero, being 
somewhat abashed > by the novelty of his situation and the 
rebuke of Gentleman George, accepted, though with some 
reluctance, the proffered courtesy. 

Order being thus restored, the conversation of the conviv- 
ialists began to assume a most fascinating bias. They talked 
with infinite gout of the sums they had levied on the public, 
and the peculations they had committed for what one called 
the good of the community , and another, the established order , 
— meaning themselves. It was easy to see in what school 
the discerning Augustus Tomlinson had learned the value of 
words. 

There was something edifying in hearing the rascals ! So 
nice was their language, and so honest their enthusiasm for 
their own interests, you might have imagined you were listen- 
ing to a coterie of cabinet ministers conferring on taxes or 
debating on perquisites. 

“Long may the Commons flourish! ” cried punning Georgie, 
filling his glass ; “ it is by the commons we ’re fed, and may 
they never know cultiwation ! ” 

“Three times three!” shouted Long Ned; and the toast 
was drunk as Mr. Pepper proposed. 

“A little moderate cultivation of the commons, to speak 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


109 


frankly,” said Augustus Tomlinson, modestly, “ might not be 
amiss; for it would decoy people into the belief that they 
might travel safely; and, after all, a hedge or a barley-field is 
as good for us as a barren heath, where we have no shelter if 
once pursued! ” 

“You talks nonsense, you spooney! ” cried a robber of note, 
called Bagshot; who, being aged and having been a lawyer’s 
footboy, was sometimes denominated “ Old Bags.” “ You talks 
nonsense ; these innowating ploughs are the ruin of us. Every 
blade of corn in a common is an encroachment on the constitu- 
tion and rights of the gemmen highwaymen. I ’m old, and 
may n’t live to see these things ; but, mark my words, a time 
will come when a man may go from Lunnun to Johnny 
Groat’s without losing a penny by one of us ; when Hounslow 
will be safe, and Finchley secure. My eyes, what a sad thing 
for us that ’ll be!” 

The venerable old man became suddenly silent, and the 
tears started to his eyes. Gentleman George had a great 
horror of blue devils, and particularly disliked all disagree- 
able subjects. 

“ Thunder and oons, Old Bags ! ” quoth mine host of the 
Jolly Angler, “this will never do; we’re all met here to be 
merry, and not to listen to your mullancolly taratarantarums. 
I says, Ned Pepper, s’pose you tips us a song, and I ’ll beat 
time with my knuckles.” 

Long Ned, taking the pipe from his mouth, attempted, like 
Walter Scott’s Lady Heron, one or two pretty excuses; these 
being drowned by a universal shout, the handsome purloiner 
gave the following song, to the tune of “ Time has not thinned 
my flowing hair.” 


LONG NED’S SONG. 


i. 

Oh, if my hands adhere to cash, 
My gloves at least are clean, 
And rarely have the gentry flash 
In sprucer clothes been seen. 


110 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


ii. 

Sweet Public, since your coffers must 
Afford our wants relief, 

Oh ! soothes it not to yield the dust 
To such a charming thief ? 


hi. 

I never robbed a single coach 
But with a lover’s air ; 

And though you might my course reproach, 
You never could my hair. 


IV. 

John Bull, who loves a harmless joke, 
Is apt at me to grin ; 

But why be cross with laughing folk, 
Unless they laugh and win? 


v. 

John Bull has money in his box ; 

And though his wit ’s divine, 

Yet let me laugh at Johnny’s locks, 

And John may laugh at mine ! 

‘“And John may laugh at mine/ — excellent! ” cried Gen- 
tleman George, lighting his pipe, and winking at Attie; “I 
hears as how you be a famous fellow with the lasses.” 

Ned smiled and answered, “No man should boast; but — ” 
Pepper paused significantly, and then glancing at Attie, said, 
“Talking of lasses, it is my turn to knock down a gentleman 
for a song, and I knock down Fighting Attie.” 

“I never sing,” said the warrior. 

“Treason, treason!” cried Pepper. “It is the law, and 
you must obey the law; so begin.” # 

“It is true, Attie,” said Gentleman George. 

There was no appeal from the honest publican’s fiat; so, in 
a quick and laconic manner, it being Attie’s favourite dogma 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Ill 


that the least said is the soonest mended, the warrior sung as 
follows : — 

FIGHTING ATTIE’S SONG. 

Air : “ He was famed for deeds of arms.” 

Rise at six, dine at two, 

Rob your man without ado, — 

Such my maxims ; if you doubt 
Their wisdom, to the right-about ! 

( Signing to a sallow gentleman on the same side of the table to send up the 
brandy bowl.) 

Pass round the bingo, — of a gun, 

You musty, dusky, husky son ! 1 

The Sallow Gentleman (in a hoarse voice). 

Attie, the bingo ’s now with me ; 

I can’t resign it yet, d’ ye see ! 

Attie ( seizing the bowl). 

Resign, resign it, — cease your dust ! 

( Wresting it away and fiercely regarding the sallow gentleman.) 

You have resigned it, and you must. 

CHORUS. 

You have resigned it, and you must. 


While the chorus, laughing at the discomfited tippler, 
yelled forth the emphatic words of the heroic Attie, that 
personage emptied the brandy at a draught, resumed his pipe, 
and in as few words as possible called on Bagshot for a song. 
The excellent old highwayman, with great diffidence, obeyed 
the request, cleared his throat, and struck off with a ditty 
somewhat to the tune of “The Old Woman.” 

1 Much of whatever amusement might be occasioned bv the not (we trust) 
ill-natured travesties of certain eminent characters in this part of our work 
when first published, like all political allusions, loses point and becomes ob- 
scure as the applications cease to be familiar. It is already necessary, per- 
haDS, to say that Fighting Attie herein typifies or illustrates the Duke of 
Wellington’s abrupt dismissal of Mr. Huskisson. 


112 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


OLD BAGS’S SONG. 

Are the days then gone, when on Hounslow Heath 
We flashed our nags, 

When the stoutest bosoms quailed beneath 
The voice of Bags 1 

Ne’er was my work half undone, lest 
I should be nabbed : 

Slow was old Bags, but he never ceased 
Till the whole was grabbed. 

CHORUS. 

Till the whole was grabbed. 

When the slow coach paused, and the gemmen stormed, 

I bore the brunt ; 

And the only sound which my grave lips formed 
Was “ blunt,” — still “ blunt ” ! 

Oh, those jovial days are ne’er forgot ! 

But the tape lags — 

When I be’s dead, you ’ll drink one pot 
To poor old Bags ! 

CHORUS. 

To poor old Bags ! 

“Ay, that we will, my dear Bagshot,” cried Gentleman 
George, affectionately ; but observing a tear in the fine old fel- 
low’s eye, he added: “Cheer up! What, ho! cheer up! Times 
will improve, and Providence may yet send us one good year, 
when you shall be as well off as ever. You shakes your poll. 
Well, don’t be humdurgeoned, but knock down a gemman.” 

Dashing away the drop of sensibility, the veteran knocked 
down Gentleman George himself. 

“ Oh, dang it ! ” said George, with an air of dignity, “ I 
ought to skip, since I finds the lush; but howsomever here 
goes.” 


GENTLEMAN GEORGE’S SONG. 
Air : “ Old King Cole.” 

I be’s the cove, the merry old cove, 

Of whose max all the rufflers sing ; 
And a lushing cove, I thinks, by Jove, 
Is as great as a sober king ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


113 


CHORDS. 

Is as great as a sober king ! 

Whatever the noise as is made by the boys 
At the bar as they lush away, 

The devil a noise my peace alloys 
As long as the rascals pay 1 

CHORDS. 

As long as the rascals pay ! 

What if I sticks my stones and my bricks 
With mortar I takes from the snobbish? 

All who can feel for the public weal 
Likes the public-house to be bobbish. 

CHORDS. 

Likes the public-house to be bobbish. 

“ There, gemmen ! ” said the publican, stopping short, 
“that’s the pith of the matter, and split my wig but I’m 
short of breath now. So send round the brandy, Augustus; 
you sly dog, you keeps it all to yourself.” 

By this time the whole conclave were more than half-seas 
over, or, as Augustus Tomlinson expressed it, “their more 
austere qualities were relaxed bj T a pleasing and innocent 
indulgence.” Paul’s eyes reeled, and his tongue ran loose. 
By degrees the room swam round, the faces of his comrades 
altered, the countenance of Old Bags assumed an awful and 
menacing air. He thought Long Ned insulted him, and that 
Old Bags took the part of the assailant, doubled his fist, and 
threatened to put the plaintiff’s nob into chancery if he dis- 
turbed the peace of the meeting. Various other imaginary 
evils beset him. He thought he had robbed a mail-coach in 
company with Pepper; that Tomlinson informed against him, 
and that Gentleman George ordered him to be hanged; in 
short, he laboured under a temporary delirium, occasioned by 
a sudden reverse of fortune, — from water to brandy ; and the 
last thing of which he retained any recollection, before he 
sank under the table, in company with Long Ned, Scarlet 
Jem, and Old Bags, was the bearing his part in the burden 
of what appeared to him a chorus of last dying speeches and 

S 


114 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


confessions, but what in reality was a song made in honour of 
Gentleman George, and sung by his grateful guests as a finale 
of the festivities. It ran thus : — 

THE ROBBER’S GRAND TOAST. 

A tumbler of blue ruin, fill, fill for me ! 

Red tape those as likes it mav drain ; 

But whatever the lush, it a bumper must be. 

If we ne’er drinks a bumper again ! 

Now — now in the crib, where a ruffler may lie, 

Without fear that the traps should distress him, 

With a drop in the mouth, and a drop in the eye, 

Here ’s to Gentleman George, — God bless him ! 

God bless him, God bless him ! 

Here ’s to Gentleman George, — God bless him ! 

’Mong the pals of the prince I have heard it ’s the go. 

Before they have tippled enough, 

To smarten their punch with the best cura£oa, 

More conish to render the stuff. 

I boast not such lush ; but whoever his glass 
Does not like, I ’ll be hanged if I press him ! 

Upstanding, my kiddies, — round, round let it pass ! 

Here ’s to Gentleman George, — God bless him ! 

God bless him, God bless him ! 

Here ’s to Gentleman George, — God bless him ! 

See, see, the fine fellow grows weak on his stumps; 

Assist him, ye rascals, to stand ! 

Why, ye stir not a peg ! Are you all in the dumps? 

Fighting Attie, go, lend him a hand ! 

( The robbers crowd around Gentleman George, each, under pretence of supporting 
him, pulling him first one way and then another.) 

Come, lean upon me, — at your service I am ! 

Get away from his elbow, you whelp ! him 
You ’ll only upset, — them ’ere fellows but sham ! 

Here ’s to Gentleman George, — God help him ! 

God help him, God help him ! 

Here ’s to Gentleman George, God help him ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


115 


CHAPTER XI. 

I boast no song in magic wonders rife ; 

But yet, O Nature ! is there nought to prize, 

Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life'? 

And dwells in daylight truth’s salubrious skies 
No form with which the soul may sympathize'? 

Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild 
The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise, 

An inmate in the home of Albert smiled, 

Or blessed his noonday walk, — she was his only child. 

Gertrude of Wyoming. 

O time, thou hast played strange tricks with us; and we 
bless the stars that made us a novelist, and permit us now to 
retaliate. Leaving Paul to the instructions of Augustus 
Tomlinson and the festivities of the Jolly Angler, and suffer- 
ing him, by slow but sure degrees, to acquire the graces and 
the reputation of the accomplished and perfect appropriator 
of other men’s possessions, we shall pass over the lapse of 
years with the same heedless rapidity with which they have 
glided over us, and summon our reader to a very different 
scene from those which would be likely to greet his eyes, 
were he following the adventures of our new Telemachus. 
Nor wilt thou, dear reader, whom we make the umpire be- 
tween ourself and those who never read, — the critics ; thou 
who hast, in the true spirit of gentle breeding, gone with us 
among places where the novelty of the scene has, we fear, 
scarcely atoned for the coarseness, not giving thyself the airs 
of a dainty abigail, — not prating, lacquey -like, on the low 
company thou has met, — nor wilt thou, dear and friendly 
reader, have cause to dread that we shall weary thy patience 
by a “ damnable iteration” of the same localities. Pausing 
for a moment to glance over the divisions of our story, which 
lies before us like a map, we feel that we may promise in 
future to conduct thee among aspects of society more familiar 


116 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


to thy habits ; where events flow to their allotted gulf through 
landscapes of more pleasing variety and among tribes of a 
more luxurious civilization. 

Upon the banks of one of fair England’s fairest rivers, and 
about fifty miles distant from London, still stands an old- 
fashioned abode, which we shall here term Warlock Manor- 
house. It is a building of brick, varied by stone copings, and 
covered in great part with ivy and jasmine. Around it lie the 
ruins of the elder part of the fabric ; and these are sufficiently 
numerous in extent and important in appearance to testify 
that the mansion was once not without pretensions to the 
magnificent. These remains of power, some of which bear 
date as far back as the reign of Henry the Third, are sanc- 
tioned by the character of the country immediately in the 
vicinity of the old manor-house. A vast tract of waste land, 
interspersed with groves of antique pollards, and here and 
there irregular and sinuous ridges of green mound, betoken to 
the experienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or 
park, which must originally have been of no common dimen- 
sions. On one side of the house the lawn slopes towards the 
river, divided from a terrace, which forms the most impor- 
tant embellishment of the pleasure-grounds, by that fence to 
which has been given the ingenious and significant name of 
“ha-ha! ” A few scattered trees of giant growth are the sole 
obstacles that break the view of the river, which has often 
seemed to us, at that particular passage of its course, to glide 
with unusual calmness and sereqity. On the opposite side 
of the stream there is a range of steep hills, celebrated for 
nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to the 
flocks that browse upon that short and seemingly stinted 
herbage a flavour peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that 
pastoral animal which changes its name into mutton after its 
decease. Upon these hills the vestige of human habitation is 
not visible; and at times, when no boat defaces the lonely 
smoothness of the river, and the evening has stilled the 
sounds of labour and of life, we know few scenes so utterly 
tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by 
the old, quaint -fashioned house and its antique grounds, — 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


117 


the smooth lawn, the silent, and (to speak truly, though dis- 
paragingly) the somewhat sluggish river, together with the 
large hills (to which we know, from simple though metaphysi- 
cal causes, how entire an idea of quiet and immovability 
peculiarly attaches itself), and the white flocks, — those most 
peaceful of God’s creatures, — that in fleecy clusters stud the 
ascent. 

In Warlock House, at the time we refer to, lived a gentle- 
man of the name of Brandon. He was a widower, and had 
attained his fiftieth year without casting much regret on the 
past or feeling much anxiety for the future. In a word, 
Joseph Brandon was one of those careless, quiescent, indif- 
ferent men, by whom a thought upon any subject is never 
recurred to without a very urgent necessity. He was good- 
natured, inoffensive, and weak; and if he was not an incom- 
parable citizen, he was at least an excellent vegetable. He 
was of a family of high antiquity, and formerly of consider- 
able note. For the last four or five generations, however, the 
proprietors of Warlock House, gradually losing something 
alike from their acres and their consequence, had left to their 
descendants no higher rank than that of a small country 
squire. One had been a Jacobite, and had drunk out half-a- 
dozen farms in honour of Charley over the water; Charley 
over the water was no very dangerous person, but Charley 
over the wine was rather more ruinous. The next Brandon 
had been a fox-hunter, and fox-hunters live as largely as 
patriotic politicians. Pausanias tells us that the same people 
who were the most notorious for their love of wine were also 
the most notorious for their negligence of affairs. Times are 
not much altered since Pausanias wrote, and the remark holds 
as good with the English as it did with the Phigalei. After 
this Brandon came one who, though he did not scorn the 
sportsman, rather assumed the fine gentleman. He married 
an heiress, who of course assisted to ruin him; wishing no 
assistance in so pleasing an occupation, he overturned her 
(perhaps not on purpose), in a new sort of carriage which he 
was learning to drive, and the good lady was killed on the 
spot. She left the fine gentleman two sons, — Joseph Bran' 


118 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


don, the present thane, and a brother some years younger. 
The elder, being of a fitting age, was sent to school, and some- 
what escaped the contagion of the paternal mansion. But the 
younger Brandon, having only reached his fifth year at the 
time of his mother's decease, was retained at home. Whether 
he was handsome or clever or impertinent, or like his father 
about the eyes (that greatest of all merits), we know not; but 
the widower became so fond of him that it was at a late period 
and with great reluctance that he finally intrusted him to the 
providence of a school. 

Among harlots and gamblers and lords and sharpers, and 
gentlemen of the guards, together with their frequent accom- 
paniments, — guards of the gentlemen, namely, bailiffs, — 
William Brandon passed the first stage of his boyhood. He 
was about thirteen when he was sent to school ; and being a 
boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time so well that 
when at the age of nineteen he adjourned to the University, he 
had scarcely resided there a single term before he had borne 
off two of the highest prizes awarded to academical merit. 
From the University he departed on the “grand tour,” at that 
time thought so necessary to complete the gentleman ; he went 
in company with a young nobleman, whose friendship he had 
won at the University, stayed abroad more than two years, and 
on his return he settled down to the profession of the law. 

Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a younger 
brother, being literally next to nothing, and the family estate 
(for his brother was not unwilling to assist him) being terribly 
involved, it was believed that he struggled for some years with 
very embarrassed and penurious circumstances. During this 
interval of his life, however, he was absent from London, and 
by his brother supposed to have returned to the Continent; at 
length, it seems, he profited by a renewal of his friendship 
with the young nobleman who had accompanied him abroad, 
reappeared in town, and obtained through his noble friend 
one or two legal appointments of reputable emolument. Soon 
afterwards he got a brief on some cause where a major had 
been raising a corps to his brother officer, with the better 
consent of the brother-officer’s wife than of the brother officer 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


119 


himself. Brandon’s abilities here, for the first time in his 
profession, found an adequate vent; his reputation seemed 
made at once, he rose rapidly in his profession, and, at the 
time we now speak of, he was sailing down the full tide of 
fame and wealth, the envy and the oracle of all young Tem- 
plars and barristers, who, having been starved themselves for 
ten years, began now to calculate on the possibility of starv- 
ing their clients. At an early period in his career he had, 
through the good offices of the nobleman we have mentioned, 
obtained a seat in the House of Commons; and though his elo- 
quence was of an order much better suited to the bar than the 
senate, he had nevertheless acquired a very considerable repu- 
tation in the latter, and was looked upon by many as likely 
to win to the same brilliant fortunes as the courtly Mansfield, 
— *a great man, whose political principles and urbane address 
Brandon was supposed especially to affect as his own model. 
Of unblemished integrity in public life, — for, as he supported 
all things that exist with the most unbending rigidity, he 
could not be accused of inconsistency, — William Brandon was 
(as we have said in a former place of unhappy memory to our 
hero) esteemed in private life the most honourable, the most 
moral, even the most austere of men ; and his grave and stern 
repute on this score, joined to the dazzle of his eloquence and 
forensic powers, had baffled in great measure the rancour of 
party hostility, and obtained for him a character for virtues 
almost as high and as enviable as that which he had acquired 
for abilities. 

While William was thus treading a noted and an honour- 
able career, his elder brother, who had married into a clergy- 
man’s family, and soon lost his consort, had with his only 
child, a daughter named Lucy, resided in his paternal man- 
sion in undisturbed obscurity. The discreditable character 
and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk 
their respectability in the county as well as curtailed their 
property, had rendered the surrounding gentry little anxious 
to cultivate the intimacy of the present proprietor ; and the 
heavy mind and retired manners of Joseph Brandon were not 
calculated to counterbalance the faults of his forefathers, nor 


120 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


to reinstate the name of Brandon in its ancient popularity and 
esteem. Though dull and little cultivated, the squire was not 
without his “proper pride; ” he attempted not to intrude him- 
self where he was unwelcome, avoided county meetings and 
county balls, smoked his pipe with the parson, and not unoften 
with the surgeon and the solicitor, and suffered his daughter 
Lucy to educate herself with the help of the parson’s wife, 
and to ripen (for Nature was more favourable to her than Art) 
into the very prettiest girl that the whole county — we long 
to say the whole country — at that time could boast of. Never 
did glass give back a more lovely image than that of Lucy 
Brandon at the age of nineteen. Her auburn hair fell in the 
richest luxuriance over a brow never ruffled, and a cheek 
where the blood never slept; with every instant the colour 
varied, and at every variation that smooth, pure, virgin cheek 
seemed still more lovely than before. She had the most beau- 
tiful laugh that one who loved music could imagine, — silvery, 
low, and yet so full of joy! All her movements, as the old 
parson said, seemed to keep time to that laugh, for mirth 
made a great part of her innocent and childish temper; and 
yet the mirth was feminine, never loud, nor like that of young 
ladies who had received the last finish at Highgate seminaries. 
Everything joyous affected her, and at once, — air, flowers, 
sunshine, butterflies. Unlike heroines in general, she very 
seldom cried, and she saw nothing charming in having the 
vapours. But she never looked so beautiful as in sleep; and 
as the light breath came from her parted lips, and the ivory 
lids closed over those eyes which only in sleep were silent, 
— and her attitude in her sleep took that ineffable grace be- 
longing solely to childhood, or the fresh youth into which 
childhood merges, — she was just what you might imagine a 
sleeping Margaret, before that most simple and gentle of all 
a poet’s visions of womanhood had met with Faust, or her 
slumbers been ruffled with a dream of love. 

We cannot say much for Lucy’s intellectual acquirements; 
she could, thanks to the parson’s wife, spell indifferently 
well, and write a tolerable hand; she made preserves, and 
sometimes riddles, —it was more difficult to question the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


121 


excellence of the former than to answer the queries of the 
latter. She worked to the admiration of all who knew her, 
and we beg leave to say that we deem that “ an excellent thing 
in woman.” She made caps for herself and gowns for the 
poor, and now and then she accomplished the more literary 
labour of a stray novel that had wandered down to the Manor- 
house, or an abridgment of ancient history, in which was 
omitbed everything but the proper names. To these attain- 
ments she added a certain modicum of skill upon the spinet, 
and the power of singing old songs with the richest and sweet- 
est voice that ever made one’s eyes moisten or one’s heart beat. 

Her moral qualities were more fully developed than her 
mental. She was the kindest of human beings; the very dog 
that had never seen her before knew that truth at the first 
glance, and lost no time in making her acquaintance. The 
goodness of her heart reposed upon her face like sunshine, 
and the old wife at the lodge said poetically and truly of the 
effect it produced, that “one felt warm when one looked on 
her.” If we could abstract from the description a certain 
chilling transparency, the following exquisite verses of a for- 
gotten poet 1 might express the purity and lustre of her 
countenance : — 

“ Her face was like the milky way i’ the sky, 

A meeting of gentle lights without a name.” 

She was surrounded by pets of all kinds, ugly and handsome, 
— from Ralph the raven to Beauty the pheasant, and from 
Bob, the sheep-dog without a tail, to Beau, the Blenheim 
with blue ribbons round his neck ; all things loved her, and 
she loved all things. It seemed doubtful at that time whether 
she would ever have sufficient steadiness and strength of 
character. Her beauty and her character appeared so essen- 
tially womanlike — soft yet lively, buoyant yet caressing — 
that you could scarcely place in her that moral dependence 
that you might in a character less amiable but less yieldingly 
feminine. Time, however, and circumstance, which alter and 
harden, were to decide whether the inward nature did not pos- 


1 Suckling. 


122 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


sess some latent and yet undiscovered properties. Such was 
Lucy Brandon in the year ; and in that year, on a beau- 

tiful autumnal evening, we first introduce her personally to 
our readers. 

She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river side, with her 
father, who was deliberately conning the evening paper of a 
former week, and gravely seasoning the ancient news with the 
inspirations of that weed which so bitterly excited the royal 
indignation of our British Solomon. It happens, unfortu- 
nately for us, — for outward peculiarities are scarcely worthy 
the dignity to which comedy, whether in the drama or the 
narrative, aspires, — that Squire Brandon possessed so few 
distinguishing traits of mind that he leaves his delineator 
little whereby to designate him, save a confused and paren- 
thetical habit of speech, by which he very often appeared to 
those who did not profit by long experience or close observa- 
tion, to say exactly, and somewhat ludicrously, that which he 
did not mean to convey. 

“I say, Lucy,” observed Mr. Brandon, but without lifting 
his eyes from the paper, — “I say, corn has fallen ; think of 
that, girl, think of that! These times, in my opinion (ay, 
and in the opinion of wiser heads than mine, though I do not 
mean to say that I have not some experience in these matters, 
which is more than can be said of all our neighbours ), are very 
curious and even dangerous .” 

“ Indeed, Papa ! ” answered Lucy. 

“And I say, Lucy, dear,” resumed the squire, after a short 
pause, “ there has been (and very strange it is, too, when one 
considers the crowded neighbourhood — Bless me! what 
times these are!) a shocking murder committed upon ( the 
tobacco stopper , — there it is) — think, you know, girl, — just 
by Epping ! — an old gentleman ! ” 

“Dear, how shocking! By whom?” 

“Ay, that’s the question! The coroner’s inquest has 
(what a blessing it is to live in a civilized country, where 
a man does not die without knowing the why and the where- 
fore!) sat on the body, and declared (ib is very strange, but 
they don’t seem to have made much discovery} for why? we 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


123 


knew as much before) that the body was found (it was found 
on the floor, Lucy) murdered; murderer or murderers (in the 
bureau , which was broken open, they found the money left 
quite untouched) unknown ! ” 

Here there was again a slight pause ; and passing to another 
side of the paper, Mr. Brandon resumed, in a quicker tone, — 

“Ha! well, now this is odd! But he’s a deuced clever 
fellow, Lucy! That brother of mine has (and in a very 
honourable manner, too, which I am sure is highly creditable 
to the family, though he has not taken too much notice of me 
lately, — a circumstance which, considering I am his elder 
brother, I am a little angry at) distinguished himself in a 
speech, remarkable, the paper says, for its great legal (I won- 
der, by the by, whether William could get me that agistment- 
money ! ’t is a heavy thing to lose ; but going to law, as my 
poor father used to say, is like fishing for gudgeons [not a 
bad little fish; we can have some for supper ] with guineas') 
knowledge, as well as its splendid and overpowering (I do 
love Will for keeping up the family honour; I am sure it is 
more than I have done, heigh-ho!), eloquence!” 

“And on what subject has he been speaking, Papa?” 

“Oh, a very fine subject; what you call a (it is astonishing 
that in this country there should be such a wish for taking 
away people’s characters, which, for my part, I don’t see is a 
bit more entertaining than what you are always doing, — play- 
ing with those stupid birds) libel! ” 

“But is not my uncle William coming down to see us? He 
promised to do so, and it made you quite happy, Papa, for two 
days. I hope he will not disappoint you; and I am sure that 
it is not his fault if he ever seems to neglect you. He spoke 
of you to me, when I saw him, in the kindest and most affec- 
tionate manner. I do think, my dear father, that he loves 
you very much.” 

“Ahem!” said the squire, evidently flattered, and yet not 
convinced. “My brother Will is a very acute fellow, and I 
make no — my dear little girl — question, but that (when you 
have seen as much of the world as I have, you will grow sus- 
picious) he thought that any good word said of me to my 


124 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


daughter would (you see, Lucy, I am as clear-sighted as my 
neighbours, though I don’t give myself all their airs ; which I 
very well might do, considering my great-great-great-grand- 
father, Hugo Brandon, had a hand in detecting the gunpow- 
der plot) be told to me again ! ” 

“Hay, but I am quite sure my uncle never spoke of you to 
me with that intention.” 

“Possibly, my dear child; but when (the evenings are much 
shorter than they were!) did you talk with your uncle about 
me?” 

“Oh, when staying with Mrs. Warner, in London; to be 
sure, it is six years ago, but I remember it perfectly. I 
recollect, in particular, that he spoke of you very handsomely 
to Lord Mauleverer, who dined with him one evening when I 
was there, and when my uncle was so kind as to take me to 
the play. I was afterwards quite sorry that he was so good- 
natured, as he lost (you remember I told you the story) a very 
valuable watch.” 

“Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so (how long 
friendship lasts, with some people ! ) Lord Mauleverer dined 
with William! What a fine thing it is for a man (it is what 
I never did, indeed; I like being what they call ‘ Cock of the 
Walk’ — let me see, now I think of it, Pillum comes to-night 
to play a hit at backgammon) to make friends with a great 
man early in (yet Will did not do it very early, poor fellow! 
He struggled first with a great deal of sorrow — hardship, 
that is) life! It is many years now since Will has been hand- 
and-glove with my (’t is a bit of a puppy) Lord Mauleverer. 
What did you think of his lordship?” 

“Of Lord Mauleverer? Indeed I scarcely observed him; 
but he seemed a handsome man, and was very polite. Mrs. 
Warner said he had been a very wicked person when he was 
young, but he seems good-natured enough now, Papa. ” 

“By the by,” said the squire, “his lordship has just been 
made (this new ministry seems very unlike the old, which 
rather puzzles me; for I think it my duty, d’ye see, Lucy, 
always to vote for his Majesty’s government, especially see- 
ing that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting the gum 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


125 


powder plot; and it is a little odd — at least, at first — to 
think that good now which one has always before been think- 
ing abominable) Lord Lieutenant of the county.” 

“Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant?” 

“Yes, child; and since his lordship is such a friend of my 
brother, I should think, considering especially what an old 
family in the county we are, — not that I wish to intrude my- 
self where I am not thought as fine as the rest, — that he 

would be more attentive to us than Lord was ; but that, 

my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum; and so, perhaps, 
you would like to walk to the parson’s, as it is a fine evening. 
John shall come for you at nine o’clock with (the moon is not 
up then) the lantern.” 

Leaning on his daughter’s willing arm, the good old man 
then rose and walked homeward; and so soon as she had 
wheeled round his easy-chair, placed the backgammon board 
on the table, and wished the old gentleman an easy victory 
over his expected antagonist, the apothecary, Lucy tied down 
her bonnet, and took her way to the rectory. 

When she arrived at the clerical mansion and entered the 
drawing-room, she was surprised to find the parson’s wife, a 
good, homely, lethargic old lady, run up to her, seemingly in 
a state of great nervous agitation and crying, — 

“Oh, my dear Miss Brandon! which way did you come? 
Did you meet nobody by the road? Oh, I am so frightened! 
Such an accident to poor dear Dr. Slopperton! Stopped in 
the king’s highway, robbed of some tithe-money he had just 
received from Farmer Slowforth ! If it had not been for that 
dear angel, good young man, God only knows whether I might 
not have been a disconsolate widow by this time ! ” 

While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy’s 
eye glancing round the room discovered in an armchair the 
round and oily little person of Dr. Slopperton, with a counte- 
nance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular 
excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like the last 
rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of 
miserable pallor. The little man tried to conjure up a smile 
while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter 


126 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


forth some syllable of unconcern; but he looked, for all his 
bravado, so exceedingly scared that Lucy would, despite her- 
self, have laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon the 
figure of a young man who had been seated beside the rever- 
end gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy’s entrance, and 
who now stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of 
great respect^ Blushing deeply and involuntarily, she turned 
her eyes hastily away, and approaching the good doctor, made 
her inquiries into the present state of his nerves, in a graver 
tone than she had a minute before imagined it possible that 
she should have been enabled to command. 

“Ah! my good young lady,” said the doctor, squeezing 
her hand, “I — may, I may say the church — for am I not its 
minister? — was in imminent danger — but this excellent gen- 
tleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure. I 
only lost some of my dues, — my rightful dues, — for which I 
console myself with thinking that the infamous and aban- 
doned villain will suffer hereafter.” 

“There cannot be the least doubt of that,” said the young 
man. “Had he only robbed the mail-coach, or broken into 
a gentleman’s house, the offence might have been expiable; 
but to rob a clergyman, and a rector too ! — Oh, the sacrile- 
gious dog ! ” 

“Your warmth does you honour, sir,” said the doctor, 
beginning now to recover; “and I am very proud to have 
made the acquaintance of a gentleman of such truly religious 
opinions.” 

“Ah!” cried the stranger, “my foible, sir, — if I may so 
speak, — is a sort of enthusiastic fervour for the Protestant 
Establishment. Nay, sir, I never come across the very nave 
of the church without feeling an indescribable emotion — a 
kind of sympathy, as it were — with — with — you understand 
me, sir — I fear I express myself ill.” 

“Nob at all, not at all!” exclaimed the dcotor: “such sen- 
timents are uncommon in one so young.” 

“ Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and pre- 
ceptor of mine, Mr. MacGrawler, and I trust they may con- 
tinue with me to my dying day.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


127 


Here the doctor’s servant entered with (we borrow a phrase 
from the novel of ) “the tea-equipage ; ” and Mrs. Slop- 

perton, betaking herself to its superintendence, inquired with 
more composure than hitherto had belonged to her demeanour, 
what sort of a looking creature the ruffian was. 

“I will tel] you, my dear, I will tell you, Miss Lucy, all 
about it. I was walking home from Mr. Slowforth’s, with 
his money in my pocket, thinking, my love, of buying you 
that topaz cross you wished to have.” 

“Dear, good man!” cried Mrs. Slopperton; “what a fiend 
it must have been to rob so excellent a creature ! ” 

“And,” resumed the doctor, “it also occurred to me that 
the Madeira was nearly out, — the Madeira, I mean, with the 
red seal ; and I was thinking it might not be amiss to devote 
part of the money to buy six dozen more; and the remainder, 
my love, which would be about one pound eighteen, I thought 
I would divide — 1 for he that giveth to the poor lendeth to 
the Lord ! ’ — among the thirty poor families on the common ; 
that is, if they behaved well, and the apples in the back gar- 
den were not feloniously abstracted ! ” 

“ Excellent, charitable man ! ” ejaculated Mrs. Slopperton. 

“ While I was thus meditating, I lifted my eyes, and saw 
before me two men, — one of prodigious height, and with a 
great profusion of hair about his shoulders; the other was 
smaller, and wore his hat slouched over his face: it was a 
very large hat. My attention was arrested by the singu- 
larity of the tall person’s hair, and while I was smiling at 
its luxuriance, I heard him say to his companion, 1 Well, 
Augustus, as you are such a moral dog, he is in your line, 
not mine; so I leave him to you.’ Little did I think those 
words related to me. No sooner were they uttered than the 
tall rascal leaped over a gate and disappeared; the other fel- 
low, then marching up to me, very smoothly asked me the 
way to the church, and while I was explaining to him to turn 
first to the right and then to the left, and so on, — for the 
best way is, you know, exceedingly crooked, — the hypocriti- 
cal scoundrel seized me by the collar, and cried out, ‘ Your 
money or your life ! ’ I do assure you that I never trembled 


128 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


so much, — not, my dear Miss Lucy, so much for my own 
sake, as for the sake of the thirty poor families on the com- 
mon, whose wants it had been my intention to relieve. I gave 
up the money, finding my prayers and expostulations were in 
vain; and the dog then, brandishing over my head an enor- 
mous bludgeon, said — what abominable language ! — ‘I think, 
doctor, I shall put an end to an existence derogatory to your- 
self and useless to others.’ At that moment the young gen- 
tleman beside me sprang over the very gate by which the tall 
ruffian had disappeared, and cried, ‘ Hold, villain ! 9 On see- 
ing my deliverer, the coward started back, and plunged into a 
neighbouring wood. The good young gentleman pursued him 
for a few minutes, but then returning to my aid, conducted 
me home ; and as we used to say at school, — 

“ 1 Te rediisse incolumem gaudeo/ — 

which, being interpreted, means (sir, excuse a pun, I am 
sure so great a friend to the Church understands Latin) that I 
am very glad to get back safe to my tea. He ! he ! And now, 
Miss Lucy, you must thank that young gentleman for having 
saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which act will no 
doubt be remembered at the Great Day ! ” 

As Lucy, looking towards the stranger, said something in 
compliment, she observed a vague, and as it were covert smile 
upon his countenance, which immediately and as if by sym- 
pathy conjured one to her own. The hero of the adventure, 
however, in a very grave tone replied to her compliment, at 
the same time bowing profoundly, — 

“Mention it not, madam! I were unworthy of the name of 
a Briton and a man, could I pass the highway without reliev- 
ing the distress or lightening the burden of a fellow-creature. 
And,” continued the stranger, after a momentary pause, colour- 
ing while he spoke, and concluding in the high-flown gallantry 
of the day, “ methinks it were sufficient reward, had I saved 
the whole church instead of one of its most valuable mem- 
bers, to receive the thanks of a lady whom I might reason- 
ably take for one of those celestial beings to whom we have 
been piously taught that the Church is especially the care! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


129 


Though there might have been something really ridiculous 
in this overstrained compliment, coupled as it was with the 
preservation of Dr. Slopperton, yet, coming from the mouth 
of one whom Lucy thought the very handsomest person she 
had ever seen, it appeared to her anything but absurd; and 
for a very long time afterwards her heart thrilled with pleas- 
ure when she remembered that the cheek of the speaker had 
glowed, and his voice had trembled as he spoke it. 

The conversation now, turning from robbers in particular, 
dwelt upon robberies in general. It was edifying to hear the 
honest indignation with which the stranger spoke of the law- 
less depredators with whom the country, in that day of Mac- 
heaths, was infested. 

“ A pack of infamous rascals ! ” said he, in a glow, “ who 
attempt to justify their misdeeds by the example of honest 
men, and who say that they do no more than is done by law- 
yers and doctors, soldiers, clergymen, and ministers of State. 
Pitiful delusion, or rather shameless hypocrisy! ” 

“It all comes of educating the poor,” said the doctor. “The 
moment they pretend to judge the conduct of their betters, 
there ’s an end of all order! They see nothing sacred in the 
laws, though we hang the dogs ever so fast; and the very 
peers of the land, spiritual and temporal, cease to be venera- 
ble in their eyes.” 

“Talking of peers,” said Mrs. Slopperton, “I hear that Lord 
Mauleverer is to pass by this road to-night on his way to 
Mauleverer Park. Do you know his lordship, Miss Lucy? 
He is very intimate with your uncle.” 

“I have only seen him once,” answered Lucy. 

“Are you sure that his lordship will come this road?” 
asked the stranger, carelessly. “ I heard something of it this 
morning, but did not know it was settled.” 

“ Oh, quite so ! ” rejoined Mrs. Slopperton. “ His lord- 
ship’s gentleman wrote for post-horses to meet his lordship 
at Wyburn, about three miles on the other side of the village, 
at ten o’clock to-night. His lordship is very impatient of 
delay.” 

“Pray,” said the doctor, who had not much heeded this turn 

9 


130 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


in the conversation, and was now “on hospitable cares intent,” 
— “ pray, sir, if not impertinent, are you visiting or lodging 
in the neighbourhood; or will you take a bed with us?” 

“You are extremely kind, my dear sir, but I fear I must 
soon wish you good-evening. I have to look after a little 
property I have some miles hence, which, indeed, brought me 
down into this part of the world.” 

“Property! — in what direction, sir, if I may ask?” quoth 
the doctor; “I know the country for miles.” 

“Do you, indeed? Where ’s my property, you say? Why, 
it is rather difficult to describe it, and it is, after all, a mere 
trifle; it is only some common-land near the highroad, and I 
came down to try the experiment of hedging and draining .” 

“ ? T is a good plan, if one has capital, and does not require 
a speedy return.” 

“Yes; but one likes a good interest for the loss of principal, 
and a speedy return is always desirable, — although, alas ! it 
is often attended with risk ! ” 

“I hope, sir,” said the doctor, “if you must leave us so 
soon, that your property will often bring you into our 
neighbourhood. ” 

“You overpower me with so much unexpected goodness,” 
answered the stranger. “ To tell you the truth, nothing can 
give me greater pleasure than to meet those again who have 
once obliged me.” 

“Whom you have obliged, rather!” cried Mrs. Slopperton; 
and then added, in a loud whisper to Lucy, “How modest! 
but it is always so with true courage ! ” 

“I assure you, madam,” returned the benevolent stranger, 
“that I never think twice of the little favours I render my 
fellow-men; my only hope is that they may be as forgetful as 
myself.” 

Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of disposition, 
the doctor and Mrs. Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in 
praise of their guest: after enduring their commendations 
and compliments for some minutes with much grimace of dis- 
avowal and diffidence, the stranger’s modesty seemed at last to 
take pain at the excess of their gratitude ; and accordingly, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 131 

pointing to the clock, which was within a few minutes to 
nine, he said, — 

“ I fear, my respected host and my admired hostess, that I 
must now leave you; I have far to go.” 

“But are you yourself not afraid of the highwaymen?” 
cried Mrs. Slopperton, interrupting him. 

“The highwaymen!” said the stranger, smiling; “no; I 
do not fear them ; besides, I have little about me worth 
robbing.” 

“Do you superintend your property yourself?” said the 
doctor, who farmed his own glebe and who, unwilling to part 
with so charming a guest, seized him now by the button. 

“Superintend it myself! why, not exactly. There is a 
bailiff, whose views of things don’t agree with mine, and who 
now and then gives me a good deal of trouble.” 

“Then why don’t you discharge him altogether?” 

“Ah! I wish I could; but ’t is a necessary evil. We landed 
proprietors, my dear sir, must always be plagued with some- 
thing of the sort. For my part, I have found those cursed 
bailiffs would take away, if they could, all the little prop- 
erty one has been trying to accumulate. But,” abruptly 
changing his manner into one of great softness, “could I 
not proffer my services and my companionship to this young 
lady? Would she allow me to conduct her home, and indeed 
stamp this day upon my memory as one of the few delightful 
ones I have ever known? ” 

“Thank you, dear sir,” said Mrs. Slopperton, answering at 
once for Lucy; “it is very considerate of you. — And I am 
sure, my love, I could not think of letting you go home alone 
with old John, after such an adventure to the poor dear 
doctor.” 

Lucy began an excuse which the good lady would not hear. 
But as the servant whom Mr. Brandon was to send with a 
lantern to attend his daughter home had not arrived, and as 
Mrs. Slopperton, despite her prepossessions in favour of her 
husband’s deliverer, did not for a moment contemplate his 
accompanying, without any other attendance, her young friend 
across the fields at that unseasonable hour, the stranger was 


132 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


forced, for the present, to re-assume his seat. An open harp- 
sichord at one end of the room gave him an opportunity to 
make some remark upon music; and this introducing an eulo- 
gium on Lucy’s voice from Mrs. Slopperton, necessarily ended 
in a request to Miss Brandon to indulge the stranger with a 
song. Never had Lucy, who was not a shy girl, — she was 
too innocent to be bashful, — felt nervous hitherto in singing 
before a stranger; but now she hesitated and faltered, and 
went through a whole series of little natural affectations 
before she complied with the request. She chose a song com- 
posed somewhat after the old English school, which at that 
time was reviving into fashion. The song, though conveying 
a sort of conceit, was not, perhaps, altogether without tender- 
ness ; it was a favourite with Lucy, she scarcely knew why, 
and ran thus : — 


LUCY’S SONG. 

Why sleep, ye gentle flowers, ah, why, 
When tender eve is falling, 

And starlight drinks the happy sigh 
Of winds to fairies calling? 

Calling with low aDd plaining note, 

Most like a ringdove chiding. 

Or flute faint-heard from distant boat 
O’er smoothest waters gliding. 

Lo, round you steals the wooing breeze ; 
Lo, on you falls the dew ! 

O sweets, awake, for scarcely these 
Can charm while wanting you ! 

Wake ye not yet, while fast below 
The silver time is fleeing ? 

0 heart of mine, those flowers but show 
Thine own contented being. 

The twilight but preserves the bloom, 
The sun can but decay ; 

The warmth that brings the rich perfume 
But steals the life away. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


133 


O heart, enjoy thy present calm, 

Rest peaceful in the shade, 

And dread the sun that gives the balm 
To bid the blossom fade. 

When Lucy ended, the strangers praise was less loud than 
either the doctor’s or his lady’s; but how far more sweet it 
was ! And for the first time in her life Lucy made the dis- 
covery that eyes can praise as well as lips. For our part, we 
have often thought that that discovery is an epoch in life. 

It was now that Mrs. Slopperton declared her thorough 
conviction that the stranger himself could sing. He had 
that about him, she said, which made her sure of it. 

“ Indeed, dear madam, ” said he, with his usual undefinable, 
half-frank, half-latent smile, “ my voice is but so-so, and my 
memory so indifferent that even in the easiest passages I soon 
come to a stand. My best notes are in the falsetto; and as 
for my execution — But we won’t talk of that” 

“Nay, nay; you are so modest,” said Mrs. Slopperton. 
“I am sure you could oblige us if you would.” 

“Your command,” said the stranger, moving to the harpsi- 
chord, “is all-sufficient; and since you, madam,” turning to 
Lucy, “have chosen a song after the old school, may I find 
pardon if I do the same? My selection is, to be sure, from a 
lawless song-book, and is supposed to be a ballad by Robin 
Hood, or at least one of his merry men, — a very different 
sort of outlaws from the knaves who attacked you, sir! ” 

With this preface the stranger sung to a wild yet jovial air, 
with a tolerable voice, the following effusion : — 

THE LOVE OF OUR PROFESSION; OR THE ROBBER’S LIFE. 

On the stream of the world, the robber’s life 
Is borne on the blithest wave ; 

Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife, 

Now it laughs in its hiding cave. 

At his maiden’s lattice he stays the rein ; 

How still is his courser proud 

(But still as a wind when it hangs o’er the main 
In the breast of the boding cloud), — 


134 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


With the champed bit and the arched crest, 

And the eye of a listening deer, 

Like valour, fretful most in rest, 

Least chafed when in career. 

Fit slave to a lord whom all else refuse 
To save at his desperate need ; 

By my troth ! I think one whom the world pursues 
Hath a right to a gallant steed. 

u Away, my beloved, I hear their feet ! 

I blow thee a kiss, my fair, 

And I promise to bring thee, when next we meet, 

A braid for thy bonny hair. 

“ Hurrah ! for the booty ! — my steed, hurrah ! 
Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we ; 

And the coy moon smiles on our merry way, 

Like my own love, — timidly.” 

The parson he rides with a jingling pouch, — 

How it blabs of the rifled poor ! 

The courtier he lolls in his gilded coach, — 

How it smacks of a sinecure ! 

The lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise 
Sweet thoughts of a mischief done ; 

And the lady that knoweth the card she plays 
Is counting her guineas won ! 

“ Ho, lady ! — What, holla, ye sinless men ! 

My claim ye can scarce refuse ; 

For when honest folk live on their neighbours, then 
They encroach on the robber’s dues ! ” 

The lady changed cheek like a bashful maid, 

The lawyer talked wondrous fair, 

The parson blasphemed, and the courtier prayed, 
And the robber bore off his share. 

et Hurrah ! for the revel ! my steed, hurrah ! 
Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we ! 

It is ever a virtue, when others pay. 

To ruffle it merrily ! ” 

Oh, there never was life like the robber’s, — so 
Jolly and bold and free ! 

And its end — why, a cheer from the crowd below, 
And a leap from a leafless tree ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


135 


This very moral lay being ended, Mrs. Slopperton declared 
it was excellent; though she confessed she thought the senti- 
ments rather loose. Perhaps the gentleman might be induced 
to favour them with a song of a more refined and modern turn, 
— something sentimental, in short. Glancing towards Lucy, 
the stranger answered that he only knew one song of the kind 
Mrs. Slopperton specified, and it was so short that he could 
scarcely weary her patience by granting her request. 

At this moment the river, which was easily descried from 
the windows of the room, glimmered in the starlight; and 
directing his looks towards the water, as if the scene had sug- 
gested to him the verses he sung, he gave the following 
stanzas in a very low, sweet tone, and with a far purer taste, 
than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding and ruder 
song. 


THE WISH. 

As sleeps the dreaming Eve below, 

Its holiest star keeps ward above, 

And yonder wave begins to glow, 

Like friendship bright’ning into Love ! 

Ah, would thy bosom were that stream, 

Ne’er wooed save by the virgin air ! — 

Ah, would that I were that star, whose beam 
Looks down and finds its image there ! 

Scarcely was the song ended, before the arrival of Miss 
Brandon’s servant was announced; and her destined escort, 
starting up, gallantly assisted her with her cloak and her 
hood, — happy, no doubt, to escape* in some measure the 
overwhelming compliments of his entertainers. 

“But,” said the doctor, as he shook hands with his deliv- 
erer, “by what name shall I remember and” (lifting his rev- 
erend eyes) “ pray for the gentleman to whom I am so much 
indebted? ” 

“You are very kind,” said the stranger; “my name is 
Clifford. Madam,” turning to Lucy, “may I offer my hand 
down the stairs?” 

Lucy accepted the courtesy; and the stranger was half-way 


136 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


down the staircase, when the doctor, stretching out his little 
neck, exclaimed, — 

“ Good-evening, sir! I do hope we shall meet again.” 

“ Fear not ! ” said Mr. Clifford, laughing gayly ; “ I am too 
great a traveller to make that hope a matter of impossibility. 
Take care, madam, — one step more.” 

The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon 
had not yet risen, as Lucy and her companion passed through 
the fields, with the servant preceding them at a little distance 
with the lantern. 

After a pause of some length, Clifford said, with a little 
hesitation, “ Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barris- 
ter of her name? ” 

“He is my uncle,” said Lucy; “do you know him?” 

“Only your uncle?” said Clifford, with vivacity, and evad- 
ing Lucy’s question. “I feared — hem! hem! — that is, I 
thought he might have been a nearer relation.” There was 
another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford resumed, in a 
low voice: “Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous 
if I say that a countenance like hers, once seen, can never be 
forgotten ; and I believe, some years since, I had the honour 
to see her in London, at the theatre? It was but a momen- 
tary and distant glance that I was then enabled to gain; and 
yet,” he added significantly, “it sufficed!” 

“I was only once at the theatre while in London, some 
years ago, ” said Lucy, a little embarrassed ; “ and indeed an 
unpleasant occurrence which happened to my uncle, with 
whom I was, is sufficient to make me remember it.” 

“Ha! and what was it? ” 

“ Why, in going out of the play-house his watch was stolen 
by some dexterous pickpocket.” 

“Was the rogue caught?” asked the stranger. 

“Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell. My uncle 
said he was extremely young, and yet quite hardened. I 
remember that I was foolish enough, when I heard of his sen- 
tence, to beg very hard that my uncle would intercede for 
him; but in vain.” 

“Did you, indeed, intercede for him?” said the stranger, 


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PAUL CLIFFORD. 


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in so earnest a tone that Lucy coloured for the twentieth 
time that night, without seeing any necessity for the blush. 
Clifford continued, in a gayer tone: “Well, it is surprising 
how rogues hang together. I should not be greatly surprised 
if the person who despoiled your uncle were one of the same 
gang as the rascal who so terrified your worthy friend the 
doctor. But is this handsome old place your home?” 

“This is my home,” answered Lucy; “but it is an old-fash- 
ioned, strange place; and few people, to whom it was not 
endeared by associations, would think it handsome.” 

“Pardon me!” said Lucy’s companion, stopping, and sur- 
veying with a look of great interest the quaint pile, which now 
stood close before them; its dark bricks, gable-ends, and ivied 
walls, tinged by the starry light of the skies, and contrasted 
by the river, which rolled in silence below. The shutters to 
the large oriel window of the room in which the squire usually 
sat were still unclosed, and the steady and warm light of the 
apartment shone forth, casting a glow even to the smooth 
waters of the river; at the same moment, too, the friendly 
bark of the house-dog was heard, as in welcome ; and was fol- 
lowed by the note of the great bell, announcing the hour for 
the last meal of the old-fashioned and hospitable family. 

“There is a pleasure in this,” said the stranger, uncon- 
sciously, and with a half-sigh ; “ I wish I had a home ! ” 

“And have you not a home?” said Lucy, with naivete. 

“As much as a bachelor can have, perhaps,” answered 
Clifford, recovering without an effort his gayety and self- 
possession. “But you know we wanderers are not allowed 
the same boast as the more fortunate Benedicts ; we send our 
hearts in search of a home, and we lose the one without gain- 
ing the other. But I keep you in the cold, and we are now 
at your door.” 

“You will come in, of course!” said Miss Brandon, “and 
partake of our evening cheer.” 

The stranger hesitated for an instant, and then said in a 
quick tone, — 

“No! many, many thanks; it is already late. Will Miss 
Brandon accept my gratitude for her condescension in permit- 


138 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


ting the attendance of one unknown to her?” As he thus 
spoke, Clifford bowed profoundly over the hand of his beauti- 
ful charge; and Lucy, wishing him good-night, hastened with 
a light step to her father’s side. 

Meanwhile Clifford, after lingering a minute, when the door 
was closed on him, turned abruptly away; and muttering to 
himself, repaired with rapid steps to whatever object he had 
then in view. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Up rouse ye then, 

My merry, merry men ! — Joanna Baillie. 

When the moon rose that night, there was one spot upon 
which she palely broke, about ten miles distant from War- 
lock, which the forewarned traveller would not have been 
eager to pass, but which might not have afforded a bad study 
to such artists as have caught from the savage painter of the 
Apennines a love for the wild and the adventurous. Dark 
trees, scattered far and wide over a broken but verdant 
sward, made the background; the moon shimmered through 
the boughs as she came slowly forth from her pavilion of 
cloud, and poured a broader beam on two figures just ad- 
vanced beyond the trees. More plainly brought into light 
* by her rays than his companion, here a horseman, clad in a 
short cloak that barely covered the crupper of his steed, was 
looking to the priming of a large pistol which he had just 
taken from his holster. A slouched hat and a mask of black 
crape conspired with the action to throw a natural suspicion 
on the intentions of the rider. His horse, a beautiful dark 
gray, stood quite motionless, with arched neck, and its short 
ears quickly moving to and fro, demonstrative of that saga- 
cious and anticipative attention which characterizes the 
noblest of all tamed animals ; you would not have perceived 
the impatience of the steed, but for the white foam that gath- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


139 


ered round the bit, and for an occasional and unfrequent toss 
of the head. Behind this horseman, and partially thrown into 
the dark shadow of the trees, another man, similarly clad, 
was busied in tightening the girths of a horse, of great 
strength and size. As he did so, he hummed, with no un- 
musical murmur, the air of a popular drinking-song. 

“ ’Sdeath, Ned! ” said his comrade, who had for some time 
been plunged in a silent revery, — “ ’Sdeath! why can you not 
stifle your love for the fine arts at a moment like this? That 
hum of thine grows louder every moment; di last I expect it 
will burst out into a full roar. Recollect we are not at Gen- 
tleman George’s now! ” 

“The more ’s the pity, Augustus,” answered Ned. “Soho, 
Little John; woaho, sir! A nice long night like this is made 
on purpose for drinking. Will you, sir? keep still then! ” 

“ ‘ Man never is, but always to be blest, ’ ” said the moraliz- 
ing Tomlinson; “you see you sigh for other scenes even when 
you have a fine night and the chance of a God-send before 
you.” 

“Ay, the night is fine enough,” said Ned, who was rather a 
grumbler, as, having finished his groom-like operation, he 
now slowly mounted. “D — it, Oliver 1 looks out as broadly 
as if he were going to blab. For my part, I love a dark 
night, with a star here and there winking at us, as much as 
to say, i I see you, my boys, but I won’t say a word about it, ’ 
and a small, pattering, drizzling, mizzling rain, that prevents 
Little John’s hoofs being heard, and covers one’s retreat, as it 
were. Besides, when one is a little wet, it is always neces- 
sary to drink the more, to keep the cold from one’s stomach 
when one gets home.” 

“Or in other words,” said Augustus, who loved a maxim 
from his very heart, “light wet cherishes heavy wet! ” 

“Good!” said Ned, yawning. “Hang it, I wish the cap- 
tain would come. Do you know what o’clock it is? Not far 
short of eleven, I suppose?” 

“About that! Hist, is that a carriage? No, it is only a 
sudden rise in the wind.” 


1 The moon. 


140 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Very self-sufficient in Mr. Wind to allow himself to be 
raised without our help! ” said Ned; “by the way, we are of 
course to go back to the Red Cave?” 

“ So Captain Lovett says. Tell me, Ned, what do you think 
of the new tenant Lovett has put into the cave?” 

“Oh, I have strange doubts there,” answered Ned, shaking 
the hairy honours of his head. “I don’t half like it; con- 
sider the cave is our stronghold, and ought only to be 
known — ” 

“To men of tried virtue,” interrupted Tomlinson. “I agree 
with you ; I must try and get Lovett to discard his singular 
protegt, as the French say.” 

“ ’Gad, Augustus, how came you by so much learning? You 
know all the poets by heart, to say nothing of Latin and 
French.” 

“Oh, hang it, I was brought up, like the captain, to a 
literary way of life.” 

“That ’s what makes you so thick with him, I suppose. He 
writes (and sings too) a tolerable song, and is certainly a 
deuced clever fellow. What a rise in the world he has made ! 
Do you recollect what a poor sort of way he was in when you 
introduced him at Gentleman George’s? and now he ’s the 
Captain Crank of the gang.” 

“The gang! the company, you mean. Gang, indeed! One 
would think you were speaking of a knot of pickpockets. 
Yes, Lovett is a clever fellow; and, thanks to me, a very 
decent philosopher!” It is impossible to convey to our 
reader the grave air of importance with which Tomlinson 
made his concluding laudation. “Yes,” said he, after a 
pause, “he has a bold, plain way of viewing things, and, 
like Voltaire, he becomes a philosopher by being a Man of 
Sense! Hist! see my horse’s ears! Some one is coming, 
though I don’t hear him ! Keep watch ! ” 

The robbers grew silent; the sound of distant hoofs was 
indistinctly heard, and, as it came nearer, there was a crash 
of boughs, as if a hedge had been ridden through. Presently 
the moon gleamed picturesquely on the figure of a horseman, 
approaching through the copse in the rear of the robbers. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


141 


Now lie was half seen among the sinuosities of his forest 
path; now in full sight, now altogether hid; then his horse 
neighed impatiently; now he again came in sight, and in a 
moment more he had joined the pair ! The new-comer was of 
a tall and sinewy frame, and in the first bloom of manhood. 
A frock of dark green, edged with a narrow silver lace, and 
buttoned from the throat to the middle, gave due effect to an 
upright mien, a broad chest, and a slender but rounded waist, 
'that stood in no need of the compression of the tailor. A 
short riding-cloak, clasped across the throat with a silver 
buckle, hung picturesquely over one shoulder, while his lower 
limbs were cased in military boots, which, though they rose 
above the knee, were evidently neither heavy nor embarrass- 
ing to the vigorous sinews of the horseman. The caparisons 
of the steed — the bit, the bridle, the saddle, the holster — 
were according to the most approved fashion of the day; and 
the steed itself was in the highest condition, and of remark- 
able beauty. The horseman’s air was erect and bold; a small 
but coal-black mustachio heightened the resolute expression 
of his short, curved lip; and from beneath the large hat which 
overhung his brow his long locks escaped, and waved darkly 
in the keen night air. Altogether, horseman and horse ex- 
hibited a gallant and even a chivalrous appearance, ‘which the 
hour and the scene heightened to a dramatic and romantic 
effect. 

“Ha! Lovett.” 

“How are you, my merry men?” were the salutations 
exchanged. 

“What news?” said Ned. 

“ Brave news ! look to it. My lord and his carriage will be 
by in ten minutes at most.” 

« Have you got anything more out of the parson I fright- 
ened so gloriously?” asked Augustus. 

“No; more of that hereafter. Now for our new prey.” 

“Are you sure our noble friend will be so soon at hand?” 
said Tomlinson, patting his steed, that now pawed in excited 
hilarity. 

“Sure! I saw him change horses; I was in the stable-yard 


142 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


at the time. He got out for half an hour, to eat, I fancy. Be 
sure that I played him a trick in the mean while.” 

“What for?” asked Ned. 

“Self and servant.” 

“The post-boys?” 

“Ay, I forgot them. Never mind, you must frighten 
them.” 

“Forwards!” cried Ned; and his horse sprang from his 
armed heel. 

“One moment,” said Lovett; “I must put on my mask. 
Soho, Robin, soho! Now for it, — forwards! ” 

As the trees rapidly disappeared behind them, the riders 
entered, at a hand gallop, on a broad tract of waste land inter- 
spersed with dikes and occasionally fences of hurdles, over 
which their horses bounded like quadrupeds well accustomed 
to such exploits. 

Certainly at that moment, what with the fresh air, the 
fitful moonlight now breaking broadly out, now lost in a 
rolling cloud, the exciting exercise, and that racy and dancing 
stir of the blood, which all action, whether evil- or noble in 
its nature, raises in our veins ; what with all this, we cannot 
but allow the fascination of that lawless life, — a fascination 
so great that one of the most noted gentlemen highwaymen of 
the day, one too who had received an excellent education and 
mixed in no inferior society, is reported to have said, when 
the rope was about his neck, and the good Ordinary was 
exhorting him to repent of his ill-spent life, “ iZZ-spent, you 
dog! ? Gad!” (smacking his lips) “it was delicious /” 

“ Fie ! fie ! Mr. , raise your thoughts to Heaven ! ” 

“ But a canter across the common — oh ! ” muttered the 
criminal; and his soul cantered off to eternity. 

So briskly leaped the heart of the leader of the three that, 
as they now came in view of the main road, and the distant 
wheel of a carriage whirred on the ear, he threw up his right 
hand with a joyous gesture, and burst into a boyish exclama- 
tion of hilarity and delight. 

“Whist, captain! ” said Ned, checking his own spirits with 
a mock air of gravity, “let us conduct ourselves like gentle- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


143 


men; it is only your low fellows who get into such con- 
foundedly high spirits; men of the world like us should do 
everything as if their hearts were broken.” 

“ Melancholy 1 ever cronies with Sublimity, and Courage is 
sublime,” said Augustus, with the pomp of a maxim-maker. 

1 A maxim which would have pleased Madame de Stael, who thought that 
philosophy consisted in fine sentiments. In the “ Life of Lord Byron,” just 
published by Mr. Moore, the distinguished biographer makes a similar assertion 
to that of the sage Augustus : “ When did ever a sublime thought spring up 
in the soul that melancholy was not to be found, however latent, in its neigh* 
bourhood? ” Now, with due deference to Mr. Moore, this is a very sickly piece 
of nonsense, that has not even an atom of truth to stand on. “ God said, 
Let there be light, and there was light ! ” — we should like to know where 
lies the melancholy of that sublime sentence. “ Truth,” says Plato, “ is the 
body of God, and light is his shadow.” In the name of common-sense, in 
what possible corner in the vicinity of that lofty image lurks the jaundiced 
face of this eternal bete noir of Mr. Moore’s? Again, in that sublimest passage 
in the sublimest of the Latiu poets (Lucretius), which bursts forth in honour 
of Epicurus , 1 is there anything that speaks to us of sadness? On the con- 
trary, in the three passages we have referred to, especially in the two first 
quoted, there is something splendidly luminous and cheering. Joy is often a 
great source of the sublime ; the suddenness of its ventings would alone 
suffice to make it so. What can be more sublime than the triumphant Psalms 
of David, intoxicated as they are with an almost delirium of transport? Even 
in the gloomiest, passages of the poets, where we recognize sublimity, we do 
not often find melancholy. We are stricken by terror, appalled by awe, but 
seldom softened into sadness. In fact, melancholy rather belongs to another 
class of feelings than those excited by a sublime passage or those which en- 
gender its composition. On one hand, in the loftiest flights of Homer, Milton, 
and Shakspeare, we will challenge a critic to discover this “ green sickness ” 
which Mr. Moore would convert into the magnificence of the plague. On the 
other hand, where is the evidence that melancholy made the habitual temper- 
aments of those divine men? Of Homer we know nothing; of Shakspeare 
and Milton, we have reason to believe the ordinary temperament was consti- 
tutionally cheerful. The latter boasts of it. A thousand instances, in con- 
tradiction to an assertion it were not worth while to contradict, were it not 
so generally popular, so highly sanctioned, and so eminently pernicious to 
everything that is manly and noble in literature, rush to our memory. 
But we think we have already quoted enough to disprove the sentence, 
which the illustrious biographer has himself disproved in more than 

1 “Primus Graius homo mortaleis tollere, contra,” etc. 

To these instances we might especially add the odes of Pindar, Horace, 
and Campbell. 


144 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Now for the hedge!” cried Lovett, unheeding his com- 
rades; and his horse sprang into the road. 

The three men now were drawn up quite still and motion- 
less by the side of the hedge. The broad road lay before 
them, curving out of sight on either side; the ground was 
hardening under an early tendency to frost, and the clear ring 
of approaching hoofs sounded on the ear of the robbers, omi- 
nous, haply, of the chinks of “more attractive metal” about, 
if Hope told no flattering tale, to be their own. 

Presently the long-expected vehicle made its appearance at 
the turn of the road, and it rolled rapidly on behind four 
fleet post-horses. 

“You, Ned, with your large steed, stop the horses; you, 
Augustus, bully the post-boys; leave me to do the rest,” said 
the captain. 

“As agreed,” returned Ned, laconically. “Now, look at 
me ! ” and the horse of the vain highwayman sprang from 
its shelter. So instantaneous were the operations of these 
experienced tacticians, that Lovett’s orders were almost exe- 
cuted in a briefer time than it had cost him to give them. 

The carriage being stopped, and the post-boys white and 
trembling, with two pistols (levelled by Augustus and Pepper) 

twenty passages, which, if he is pleased to forget, we thank Heaven posterity 
never will. Now we are on the subject of this Life, so excellent in many re- 
spects, we cannot but observe that we think the whole scope of its philosophy 
utterly unworthy of the accomplished mind of the writer ; the philosophy con- 
sists of an unpardonable distorting of general truths, to suit the peculiarities 
of an individual, noble indeed, but proverbially morbid and eccentric. A 
striking instance of this occurs in the laboured assertion that poets make but 
sorry domestic characters. What ! because Lord Byron is said to have been 
a bad husband, was (to go no further back for examples) — was Walter Scott 
a bad husband, or was Campbell, or is Mr. Moore himself? Why, in the name 
of justice, should it be insinuated that Milton was a bad husband, when, as far 
as any one can judge of the matter, it was Mrs. Milton who was the bad wife ? 
And why, oh ! why should we be told by Mr. Moore, — a man who, to judge 
by Captain Rock and the Epicurean, wants neither learning nor diligence, — 
why are we to be told, w r ith peculiar emphasis, that Lord Bacon never mar- 
ried, when Lord Bacon not only married, but his marriage was so advanta- 
geous as to be an absolute epoch in his career? Really, really, one begins to 
believe that there is not such a thing as a fact in the world ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


145 


cocked at their heads, Lovett, dismounting, threw open the 
door of the carriage, and in a very civil tone and with a very 
bland address accosted the inmate. 

“Do not be alarmed, my lord, you are perfectly safe; we 
only require your watch and purse.” 

“Really,” answered a voice still softer than that of the 
robber, while a marked and somewhat French countenance, 
crowned with a fur cap, peered forth at the arrester, — 
“ really, sir, your request is so modest that I were worse than 
cruel to refuse you. My purse is not very full, and you may 
as well have it as one of my rascally duns; but my watch I 
have a love for, and — ” 

“I understand you, my lord,” interrupted the highwayman. 
“What do you value your watch at?” 

“Humph! to you it may be worth some twenty guineas.” 

“Allow me to see it! ” 

“Your curiosity is extremely gratifying,” returned the 
nobleman, as with great reluctance he drew forth a gold 
repeater, set, as was sometimes the fashion of that day, in 
precious stones. The highwayman looked slightly at the 
bauble. 

“Your lordship,” said he, with great gravity, “was too 
modest in your calculation ; your taste reflects greater credit 
on you. Allow me to assure you that your watch is worth 
fifty guineas to us, at the least. To show you that I think so 
most sincerely, I will either keep it, and we will say no more 
on the matter ; or I will return it to you upon your word of 
honour that you will give me a check for fifty guineas pay- 
able, by your real bankers, to ‘ bearer for self. ’ Take your 
choice ; it is quite immaterial to me ! ” 

“Upon my honour, sir,” said the traveller, with some 
surprise struggling to his features, “your coolness and 
self-possession are quite admirable. I see you know the 
world.” 

“Your lordship flatters me!” returned Lovett, bowing. 
“How do you decide?” 

“Why, is it possible to write drafts without ink, pen, or 
paper?” 


10 


146 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Lovett drew back, and while he was searching in his 
pockets for writing implements, which he always carried 
about him, the traveller seized the opportunity, and suddenly 
snatching a pistol from the pocket of the carriage, levelled it 
full at the head of the robber. The traveller was an excel- 
lent and practised shot, — he was almost within arm’s length 
of his intended victim, — his pistols were the envy of all his 
Irish friends. He pulled the trigger, — the powder flashed in 
the pan; and the highwayman, not even changing counte- 
nance, drew forth a small ink-bottle, and placing a steel pen 
in it, handed it to the nobleman, saying, with incomparable 
sang fro id: “ Would you like, my lord, to try the other pistol? 
If so, oblige me by a quick aim, as you must see the necessity 
of despatch. If not, here is the back of a letter, on which you 
can write the draft.” 

The traveller was not a man apt to become embarrassed in 
anything save his circumstances ; but he 'certainly felt a little 
discomposed and confused as he took the paper, and uttering 
some broken words, wrote the check. The highwayman 
glanced over it, saw it was written according to form, and 
then with a bow of cool respect, returned the watch, and shut 
the door of the carriage. 

Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in front, boxed 
up in that solitary convenience termed, not euphoniously, a 
dickey. Him the robber now briefly accosted. 

“What have you got about you belonging to your master?” 

“Only his pills, your honour! which I forgot to put in 
the — ” 

“Pills! — throw them down to me!” The valet trem- 
blingly extricated from his side-pocket a little box, which 
he threw down and Lovett caught in his hand. 

He opened the box, counted the pills, — “ One, two, four, 
twelve, — aha!” He reopened the carriage door. “Are these 
your pills, my lord?” 

The wondering peer, who had begun to resettle himself in 
the corner of his carriage, answered that they were. 

“My lord, I see you are in a high state of fever; you were 
a little delirious just now when you snapped a pistol in your 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 147 

friend’s face. Permit me to recommend you a prescription, 
— swallow off all these pills ! ” 

“ My God ! ” cried the traveller, startled into earnestness ; 
“what do you mean? — twelve of those pills would kill a 
man ! ” 

“Hear him!” said the robber, appealing to his comrades, 
who roared with laughter. “ What, my lord, would you rebel 
against your doctor? Fie, fie! be persuaded.” 

And with a soothing gesture he stretched the pill-box 
towards the recoiling nose of the traveller. But though a 
man who could as well as any one make the best of a bad 
condition, the traveller was especially careful of his health; 
and so obstinate was he where that was concerned, that he 
would rather have submitted to the effectual operation of a 
bullet than incurred the chance operation of an extra pill. 
He therefore, with great indignation, as the box was still 
extended towards him, snatched it from the hand of the rob- 
ber, and flinging it across the road, said with dignity, — 

“ Ho your worst, rascals ! But if you leave me alive, you 
shall repent the outrage you have offered to one of his Maj- 
esty’s household! ” Then, as if becoming sensible of the ridi- 
cule of affecting too much in his present situation, he added 
in an altered tone: “And now, for Heaven’s sake, shut the 
door; and if you must kill somebody, there ’s my servant on 
the box, — he ’s paid for it.” 

This speech made the robbers laugh more than ever; and 
Lovett, who liked a joke even better than a purse, immedi- 
ately closed the carriage door, saying, — 

“Adieu, my lord; and let me give you a piece of advice: 
whenever you get out at a country inn, and stay half an hour 
while your horses are changing, take your pistols with you, 
or you may chance to have the charge drawn.” 

With this admonition the robber withdrew; and seeing that 
the valet held out to him a long green purse, he said, gently 
shaking his head, — 

“Rogues should not prey on each other, my good fellow. 
You rob your master; so do we. Let each keep what he has 
got.” 


148 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Long Ned and Tomlinson then backing their horses, the 
carriage was freed; and away started the post-boys at a pace 
which seemed to show less regard for life than the robbers 
themselves had evinced. 

Meanwhile the captain remounted his steed, and the three 
confederates, bounding in gallant style over the hedge through 
which they had previously gained the road, galloped off in the 
same direction they had come; the moon ever and anon bring- 
ing into light their flying figures, and the sound of many a 
joyous peal of laughter ringing through the distance along the 
frosty air. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

What is here? — 

Gold? 

Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair. 

Timon of Athens. 

Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly drest, 

Fresh as a bridegroom. 

Henry the Fourth. 

I do not know the man I should avoid 

So soon as that spare Cassius ! He reads much. 

He is a great observer ; and he looks 
Quite through the deeds of men. 

Often he smiles ; hut smiles in such a sort, 

As if he mocked himself or scorned his spirit, 

That could be moved to smile at anything. 

Julius Caesar. 

The next day, late at noon, as Lucy was sitting with her 
father, not as usual engaged either in work or in reading, but 
seemingly quite idle, with her pretty foot upon the squire’s 
gouty stool, and eyes fixed on the carpet, while her hands 
(never were hands so soft and so small as Lucy’s, though they 
may have been eclipsed in whiteness) were lightly clasped 
together and reposed listlessly on her knees, — the surgeon 
of the village abruptly entered with a face full of news and 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


149 


horror. Old Squire Brandon was one of those persons who 
always hear news, whatever it may he, later than any of their 
neighbours ; and it was not till all the gossips of the neigh- 
bourhood had picked the bone of the matter quite bare, that 
he was now informed, through the medium of Mr. Pillum, 
that Lord Mauleverer had on the preceding night been stopped 
by three highwaymen in his road to his country-seat, and 
robbed to a considerable amount. 

The fame of the worthy Dr. Slopperton’s maladventure 
having long ere this been spread far and wide, the whole 
neighbourhood was naturally thrown into great consternation. 
Magistrates were sent to, large dogs borrowed, blunder- 
busses cleaned, and a subscription made throughout the par- 
ish for the raising of a patrol. There seemed little doubt 
but that the offenders in either case were members of the 
same horde; and Mr. Pillum, in his own mind, was perfectly 
convinced that they meant to encroach upon his trade, and 
destroy all the surrounding householders who were worth the 
trouble. 

The next week passed in the most diligent endeavours, on 
the part of the neighbouring magistrates and yeomanry, to 
detect and seize the robbers ; but their labours were utterly 
fruitless ; and one justice of peace, who had been particularly 
active, was himself entirely “ cleaned out ” by an old gentle- 
man who, under the name of Mr. Bagshot, — rather an 
ominous cognomen, — offered to conduct the unsuspicious 
magistrate to the very spot where the miscreants might be 
seized. No sooner, however, had he drawn the poor justice 
away from his comrades into a lonely part of the road than 
he stripped him to his shirt. He did not even leave his wor- 
ship his flannel drawers, though the weather was as bitter as 
the dog-days of 1829. 

“ ? T is not my way,” said the hoary ruffian, when the justice 
petitioned at least for the latter article of attire, — “ ; t is not 
my way. I be ’s slow about my work, but I does it thor- 
oughly; so off with your rags, old un.” 

This was, however, the only additional instance of aggres- 
sion in the vicinity of Warlock Manor-house; and by degrees, 


150 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


as the autumn declined, and no further enormities were per- 
petrated, people began to look out for a new topic of conversa- 
tion. This was afforded them by a piece of unexpected good 
fortune to Lucy Brandon. 

Mrs. Warner — an old lady to whom she was slightly 
related, and with whom she had been residing during her 
brief and only visit to London — died suddenly, and in her 
will declared Lucy to be her sole heiress. The property, 
which was in the Funds, and which amounted to £60,000, 
was to be enjoyed by Miss Brandon immediately on .her at- 
taining her twenty-first year; meanwhile the executors to the 
will were to pay to the young heiress the annual sum of £600. 
The joy which this news created in Warlock Manor-house 
may easily be conceived. The squire projected improvements 
here, and repairs there; and Lucy, poor girl, who had no idea 
of money for herself, beyond the purchase of a new pony, 
or a gown from London, seconded with affectionate pleasure 
all her father’s suggestions, and delighted herself with the 
reflection that those fine plans, which were to make the 
Brandons greater than the Brandons ever were before, were 
to be realized by her own, own money! It was at this identi- 
cal time that the surrounding gentry made a simultaneous 
and grand discovery, — namely, of the astonishing merits 
and great good-sense of Mr. Joseph Brandon. It was a pity, 
they observed, that he was of so reserved and shy a turn, — 
it was not becoming in a gentleman of so ancient a family; 
but why should they not endeavour to draw him from his re- 
tirement into those more public scenes which he was doubtless 
well calculated to adorn? 

Accordingly, as soon as the first month of mourning had 
expired, several coaches, chariots, chaises, and horses which 
had never been seen at Warlock Manor-house before, arrived 
there one after the other in the most friendly manner imagin- 
able. Their owners admired everything, — the house was 
such a fine relic of old times ! — for their parts they liked an 
oak staircase! — and those nice old windows! — and what a 
beautiful peacock ! — and, Heaven save the mark ! that mag- 
nificent chestnut-tree was worth a forest ! Mr. Brandon was 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


151 


requested to make one of the county hunt, not that he any 
longer hunted himself, but that his name would give such 
consequence to the thing! Miss Lucy must come to pass a 
week with her dear friends the Honourable Misses Sansterre ! 
Augustus, their brother, had such a sweet lady’s horse ! In 
short, the customary change which takes place in people’s 
characters after the acquisition of a fortune took place in the 
characters of Mr. and Miss Brandon; and when people be- 
come suddenly amiable, it is no wonder that they should 
suddenly gain a vast accession of friends. 

But Lucy, though she had seen so little of the world, was 
not quite blind ; and the squire, though rather obtuse, was not 
quite a fool. If they were not rude to their new visitors, they 
were by no means overpowered with gratitude at their conde- 
scension. Mr. Brandon declined subscribing to the hunt, and 
Miss Lucy laughed in the face of the Honourable Augustus 
Sansterre. Among their new guests, however, was one who 
to great knowledge of the world joined an extreme and even 
brilliant polish of manners, which at least prevented deceit 
from being disagreeable, if not wholly from being unseen: 
this was the new lieutenant of the county, Lord Mauleverer. 

Though possessed of an immense property in that district, 
Lord Mauleverer had hitherto resided but little on his estates. 
He was one of those gay lords who are now somewhat uncom- 
mon in this country after mature manhood is attained, who 
live an easy and rakish life, rather among their parasites than 
their equals, and who yet, by aid of an agreeable manner, 
natural talents, and a certain graceful and light cultivation of 
mind (not the less pleasant for its being universally coloured 
with worldliness, and an amusing rather than offensive regard 
for self), never lose their legitimate station in society; who 
are oracles in dress, equipages, cookery, and beauty, and, 
having no character of their own, are able to fix by a single 
word a character upon any one else. Thus, while Mauleverer 
rather lived the dissolute life of a young nobleman, who pre- 
fers the company of agreeable demireps to that of wearisome 
duchesses, than maintained the decorous state befitting a 
mature age, and an immense interest in the country, he was 


152 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


quite as popular at court, where he held a situation in the 
household, as he was in the green-room, where he enchanted 
every actress on the right side of forty. A word from him in 
the legitimate quarters of power went further than an har- 
angue from another; and even the prudes — at least, all those 
who had daughters — confessed that his lordship was a very 
interesting character. Like Brandon, his familiar friend, he 
had risen in the world (from the Irish baron to the English 
earl) without having ever changed his politics, which were 
ultra-Tory; and we need not observe that he was deemed, 
like Brandon, a model of public integrity. He was possessed 
of two places under government, six votes in the House of 
Commons, and eight livings in the Church; and we must add, 
in justice to his loyal and religious principles, that there was 
not in the three kingdoms a firmer friend to the existing 
establishments. 

Whenever a nobleman does not marry, people try to take 
away his character. Lord Mauleverer had never married. 
The Whigs had been very bitter on the subject; they even 
alluded to it in the House of Commons, — that chaste assem- 
bly, where the never-failing subject of reproach against Mr. 
Pitt was the not being of an amorous temperament; but they 
had not hitherto prevailed against the stout earl’s celibacy. 
It is true that if he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to 
himself plenty of substitutes; his profession was that of a 
man of gallantry; and though he avoided the daughters, it 
was only to make love to the mothers. But his lordship had 
now attained a certain age, and it was at last circulated 
among his friends that he intended to look out for a Lady 
Mauleverer. 

“ Spare your caresses,” said his toady-in-chief to a certain 
duchess, who had three portionless daughters; “Mauleverer 
has sworn that he will not choose among your order. You 
know his high politics, and you will not wonder at his declar- 
ing himself averse in matrimony as in morals to a community 
of goods .” 

The announcement of the earl’s matrimonial design and 
the circulation of this anecdote set all the clergymen’s daugh* 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


153 


ters in England on a blaze of expectation; and when Maul- 

everer came to shire, upon obtaining the honour of the 

lieutenancy, to visit his estates and court the friendship of 
his neighbours, there was not an old-3 T oung lady of forty, who 
worked in broad-stitch and had never been to London above a 
week at a time, who did not deem herself exactly the sort of 
person sure to fascinate his lordship. 

It was late in the afternoon when the travelling chariot of 
this distinguished person, preceded by two outriders, in the 
earl’s undress livery of dark green, stopped at the hall door 
of Warlock House. The squire was at home, actually and 
metaphorically; for he never dreamed of denying himself to 
any one, gentle or simple. The door of the carriage being 
opened, there descended a small slight man, richly dressed (for 
lace and silk vestments were not then quite discarded, though 
gradually growing less the mode), and of an air prepossess- 
ing and distinguished rather than dignified. His years — for 
his countenance, though handsome, was deeply marked, and 
evinced the tokens of dissipation — seemed more numerous 
than they really were ; and though not actually past middle 
age, Lord Mauleverer might fairly have received the unpleas- 
ing epithet of elderly. However, his step was firm, his gait 
upright, and his figure was considerably more youthful than 
his physiognomy. The first compliments of the day having 
passed, and Lord Mauleverer having expressed his concern 
that his long and frequent absence from the county had hith- 
erto prevented his making the acquaintance of Mr. Brandon, 
the brother of one of his oldest and most esteemed friends, 
conversation became on both sides rather an effort. Mr. 
Brandon first introduced the subject of the weather, and the 
turnips; inquired whether his lordship was not very fond (for 
his part he used to be, but lately the rheumatism had disabled 
him ; he hoped his lordship was not subject to that complaint) 
of shooting ! 

Catching only the last words, — for, besides the awful com- 
plexity of the squire’s sentences, Mauleverer was slightly 
affected by the aristocratic complaint of deafness, — the earl 
answered, with a smile, — 


154 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“The complaint of shooting! Very good indeed, Mr. 
Brandon; it is seldom that I have heard so witty a phrase. 
No, I am not in the least troubled with that epidemic. It is 
a disorder very prevalent in this county.” 

“My lord!” said the squire, rather puzzled; and then, 
observing that Mauleverer did not continue, he thought it 
expedient to start another subject. 

“ I was exceedingly grieved to hear that your lordship, in 
travelling to Mauleverer Park (that is a very ugly road across 
the waste land ; the roads in this country are in general pretty 
good, — for my own part, when I was a magistrate I was very 
strict in that respect), was robbed. You have not yet, I be- 
lieve, detected (for my part, though I do not profess to be 
much of a politician, I do think that in affairs of robbery 
there is a great deal of remissness in the ministers) the 
villains ! ” 

“ Our friend is disaffected ! ” thought the lord-lieutenant, 
imagining that the last opprobrious term was applied to the 
respectable personages specified in the parenthesis. Bowing 
with a polished smile to the squire, Mauleverer replied aloud, 
that he was extremely sorry that their conduct (meaning the 
ministers) did not meet with Mr. Brandon’s approbation. 

“Well,” thought the squire, “that is playing the courtier 
with a vengeance ! — Meet with my approbation ! ” said he, 
warmly; “how could your lordship think me (for though I 
am none of your saints, I am, I hope, a good Christian; an 
excellent one, judging from your words, your lordship must 
he ! ) so partial to crime ! ” 

“I partial to crime!” returned Mauleverer, thinking he 
had stumbled unawares on some outrageous democrat, yet 
smiling as softly as usual; “you judge me harshly, Mr. 
Brandon ! You must do me more justice, and you can only 
do that by knowing me better.” 

Whatever unlucky answer the squire might otherwise have 
made was cut off by the entrance of Lucy; and the earl, 
secretly delighted at the interruption, rose to render her his 
homage, and to remind her of the introduction he had for- 
merly been so happy as to obtain to her through the friend- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


155 


ship of Mr. William Brandon, — a “friendship,” said the 
gallant nobleman, “to which I have often before been 
indebted, but which was never more agreeably exerted on 
my behalf.” 

Upon this Lucy, who though she had been so painfully 
bashful during her meeting with Mr. Clifford, felt no over- 
powering diffidence in the presence of so much greater a 
person, replied laughingly, and the earl rejoined by a second 
compliment. Conversation was now no longer an effort; and 
Mauleverer, the most consummate of epicures, whom even 
royalty trembled to ask without preparation, on being invited 
by the unconscious squire to partake of the family dinner, 
eagerly accepted the invitation. It was long since the 
knightly walls of Warlock had been honoured by the pres- 
ence of a guest so courtly. The good squire heaped his plate 
with a profusion of boiled beef; and while the poor earl was 
contemplating in dismay the Alps upon Alps which he was 
expected to devour, the gray-headed butler, anxious to serve 
him with alacrity, whipped away the overloaded plate, and 
presently returned it, yet more astoundingly surcharged with 
an additional world of a composition of stony colour and 
sudorific aspect, which, after examining in mute attention 
for some moments, and carefully removing as well as he was 
able to the extreme edge of his plate, the earl discovered to 
be suet pudding. 

“You eat nothing, my lord,” cried the squire; “let me give 
you — this is more underdone ; ” holding between blade and 
fork in middle air a horrent fragment of scarlet, shaking its 
gory locks, — “another slice.” 

Swift at the word dropped upon Mauleverer’s plate the 
harpy finger and ruthless thumb of the gray-headed butler. 

“Not a morsel more,” cried the earl, struggling with the 
murderous domestic. “My dear sir, excuse me; I assure you 
I have never ate such a dinner before, — never ! ” 

“Nay, now!” quoth the squire, expostulating, “you really 
(and this air is so keen that your lordship should indulge your 
appetite, if you follow the physician 7 s advice ) eat nothing ! ” 

Again Mauleverer was at fault. 


156 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“The physicians are right, Mr. Brandon,” said he, “very 
right, and I am forced to live abstemiously ; indeed I do not 
know whether, if I were to exceed at your hospitable table, 
and attack all that you would bestow upon me, I should ever 
recover it. You would have to seek a new lieutenant for your 
charming county, and on the tomb of the last Mauleverer the 
hypocritical and unrelated heir would inscribe, ‘ Died of the 
visitation of Beef, John, Earl, etc.’” 

Plain as the meaning of this speech might have seemed to 
others, the squire only laughed at the effeminate appetite 
of the speaker, and inclined to think him an excellent fellow 
for jesting so good-humouredly on his own physical infirm- 
ity. But Lucy had the tact of her sex, and, taking pity on 
the earl’s calamitous situation, though she certainly never 
guessed at its extent, entered with so much grace and ease 
into the conversation which he sought to establish between 
them, that Mauleverer’s gentleman, who had hitherto been 
pushed aside by the zeal of the gray-headed butler, found an 
opportunity, wheu the squire was laughing and the butler 
staring, to steal a\yay the overburdened plate unsuspected and 
unseen. 

In spite, however, of these evils of board and lodgement, 
Mauleverer was exceedingly well pleased with his visit; nor 
did he terminate it till the shades of night had begun to close, 
and the distance from his own residence conspired with expe- 
rience to remind him that it was possible for a highwayman’s 
audacity to attack the equipage even of Lord Mauleverer. He 
then reluctantly re-entered his carriage, and, bidding the pos- 
tilions drive as fast as possible, wrapped himself in his rogue- 
laire , and divided his thoughts between Lucy Brandon and 
the homard au gratin with which he proposed to console him- 
self immediately on his return home. However, Fate, which 
mocks our most cherished hopes, ordained that on arriving at 
Mauleverer Park the owner should be suddenly afflicted with 
a loss of appetite, a coldness in the limbs, a pain in the chest, 
and various other ungracious symptoms of portending malady. 
Lord Mauleverer went straight to bed ; he remained there for 
some days, and when he recovered his physicians ordered him 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


157 


to Bath. The Whig Methodists, who hated him, ascribed his 
illness to Providence; and his lordship was firmly of opinion 
that it should be ascribed to the beef and pudding. However 
this be, there was an end, for the present, to the hopes of 
young ladies of forty, and to the intended festivities at Maul- 
everer Park. 

“ Good heavens ! ” said the earl, as his carriage wheels 
turned from his gates, “what a loss to country tradesmen 
may be occasioned by a piece of underdone beef, especially if 
it be boiled ! ” 

About a fortnight had elapsed since Mauleverer’s meteoric 
visit to Warlock House, when the squire received from his 
brother the following epistle : — 

My dear Joseph, — You know my numerous avocations, and, amid 
the press of business which surrounds me, will, I am sure, forgive me 
for being a very negligent and remiss correspondent. Nevertheless, I 
assure you, no one can more sincerely sympathize in that good fortune 
which has befallen my charming niece, and of which your last letter 
informed me, than I do. Pray give my best love to her, and tell her 
how complacently I look forward to the brilliant sensation she will 
create, when her beauty is enthroned upon that rank which, I am 
quite sure, it will one day or other command. 

You are not aware, perhaps, my dear Joseph, that I have for some 
time been in a very weak and declining state of health. The old 
nervous complaint in my face has of late attacked me grievously, and 
the anguish is sometimes so great that I am scarcely able to bear it. 
I believe the great demand which my profession makes upon a frame of 
body never strong, and now beginning prematurely to feel the infirmi- 
ties of time, is the real cause of my maladies. At last, however, I must 
absolutely punish my pocket, and indulge my inclinations by a short 
respite from toil. The doctors — sworn friends, you know, to the law- 
yers, since they make common cause against mankind — have peremp- 
torily ordered me to lie by, and to try a short course of air, exercise, 
social amusements, and the waters of Bath. Fortunately this is vaca- 
tion time, and I can afford to lose a few weeks of emolument, in order, 
perhaps, to secure many years of life. I purpose, then, early next 
week, repairing to that melancholy reservoir of the gay, where persons 
dance out of life and are fiddled across the Styx. In a word, I shall 
make one of the adventurers after health who seek the goddess at King 
Bladud’s pump-room. Will you and dear Lucy join me there? I ask 


158 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


it of your friendship, and I am quite sure that neither of you will 
shrink aghast at the proposal of solacing your invalid relation. At the 
same time that I am recovering health, my pretty niece will be aveng- 
ing Pluto, by consigning to his dominions many a better and younger 
hero in my stead. And it will be a double pleasure to me to see all 
the hearts, etc. — I break off, for what can I say on that subject 
which the little coquette does not anticipate ? It is high time that 
Lucy should see the world ; and though there are many at Bath, above 
all places, to whom the heiress will be an object of interested attentions, 
yet there are also many in that crowded city by no means undeserving 
her notice. What say you, dear Joseph? But I know already: you 
will not refuse to keep company with me in my little holiday ; and 
Lucy’s eyes are already sparkling at the idea of new bonnets, Milsom 
Street, a thousand adorers, and the pump-room. 

Ever, dear Joseph, yours affectionately, 

William Brandon. 

P. S. I find that my friend Lord Mauleverer is at Bath ; I own 
that is an additional reason to take me thither ; by a letter from him, 
received the other day, I see that he has paid you a visit, and he now 
raves about his host and the heiress. Ah, Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy! are 
you going to conquer him whom all London has, for years more than I 
care to tell (yet not many, for Mauleverer is still young), assailed in 
vain ? Answer me ! 

This letter created a considerable excitement in Warlock 
House. The old squire was extremely fond of his brother, 
and grieved to the heart to find that he spoke so discourag- 
ingly of his health. Nor did the squire for a moment hesi- 
tate at accepting the proposal to join his distinguished relative 
at Bath. Lucy also — who had for her uncle, possibly from 
his profuse yet not indelicate flattery, a very great regard and 
interest, though she had seen but little of him — urged the 
squire to lose no time in arranging matters for their depart- 
ure, so as to precede the barrister, and prepare everything for 
his arrival. The father and daughter being thus agreed, 
there was little occasion for delay; an answer to the invalid’s 
letter was sent by return of post, and on the fourth day from 
their receipt of the said epistle, the good old squire, his 
daughter, a country girl by way of abigail, the gray-headed 
butler, and two or three live pets, of the size and habits most 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


159 


convenient for travelling, were on their way to a city which 
at that time was gayer at least, if somewhat less splendid, 
than the metropolis. 

On the second day of their arrival at Bath, Brandon (as in 
future, to avoid confusion, we shall call the younger brother, 
giving to the elder his patriarchal title of squire) joined them. 

He was a man seemingly rather fond of parade, though at 
heart he disrelished and despised it. He came to their lodg- 
ing, which had not been selected in the very best part of the 
town, in a carriage and six, but attended only by one favourite 
servant. 

They found him in better looks and better spirits than they 
had anticipated. Few persons, when he liked it, could be 
more agreeable than William Brandon; but at times there 
mixed with his conversation a bitter sarcasm, probably a habit 
acquired in his profession, or an occasional tinge of morose 
and haughty sadness, possibly the consequence of his ill- 
health. Yet his disorder, which was somewhat approaching 
to that painful affliction the tic douloureux , though of fits more 
rare in occurrence than those of that complaint ordinarily are, 
never seemed even for an instant to operate upon his mood, 
whatever that might be. That disease worked unseen ; not a 
muscle of his face appeared to quiver; the smile never van- 
ished from his mouth, the blandness of his voice never grew 
faint as with pain, and, in the midst of intense torture, his 
resolute and stern mind conquered every external indication; 
nor could the most observant stranger have noted the moment 
when the fit attacked or released him. There was something 
inscrutable about the man. You felt that you took his char- 
acter upon trust, and not on your own knowledge. The 
acquaintance of years would have left you equally dark as 
to his vices or his virtues. He varied often, yet in each 
variation he was equally undiscoverable. Was he perform- 
ing a series of parts, or was it the ordinary changes of a man’s 
true temperament that you beheld in him? Commonly smooth, 
quiet, attentive, flattering in social intercourse, he was known 
in the senate and courts of law for a cold asperity, and a 
caustic venom, — scarcely rivalled even in those arenas of 


160 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


contention. It seemed as if the bitterer feelings he checked 
in private life, he delighted to indulge in public. Yet even 
there he gave not way to momentary petulance or gushing 
passion ; all seemed with him systematic sarcasm or habitual 
sternness. He outraged no form of ceremonial or of society. 
He stung, without appearing conscious of the sting; and his 
antagonist writhed not more beneath the torture of his satire 
than the crushing contempt of his self-command. Cool, 
ready, armed and defended on all points, sound in knowl- 
edge, unfailing in observation, equally consummate in soph- 
istry when needed by himself, and instantaneous in detecting 
sophistry in another; scorning no art, however painful; be- 
grudging no labour, however weighty; minute in detail, yet 
not the less comprehending the whole subject in a grasp, — 
such was the legal and public character William Brandon had 
established, and such was the fame he joined to the unsullied 
purity of his moral reputation. But to his friends he seemed 
only the agreeable, clever, lively, and, if we may use the 
phrase innocently , the worldly man, — never affecting a superior 
sanctity, or an over-anxiety to forms, except upon great occa- 
sions; and rendering his austerity of manners the more ad- 
mired, because he made it seem so unaccompanied by hypocrisy. 

“Well,” said Brandon, as he sat after dinner alone with his 
relations, and had seen the eyes of his brother close in diurnal 
slumber, “tell me, Miss Lucy, what you think of Lord Maul- 
everer; do you find him agreeable?” 

“Very; too much so, indeed!” 

“Too much so! That is an uncommon fault, Lucy; unless 
you mean to insinuate that you find him too agreeable for your 
peace of mind.” 

“Oh, no! there is little fear of that. All that I meant to 
express was that he seems to make it the sole business of his 
life to be agreeable, and that one imagines he had gained that 
end by the loss of certain qualities which one would have liked 
better.” 

“Umph! and what are they?” 

“Truth, sincerity, independence, and honesty of mind.” 

“My dear Lucy, it has been the professional study of my 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


161 


life to discover a man’s character, especially so far as truth is 
concerned, in as short a time as possible ; but you excel me in 
intuition, if you can tell whether there be sincerity in a cour- 
tier’s character at the first interview you have with him.” 

“Nevertheless, I am sure of my opinion,” said Lucy, laugh- 
ing; “and I will tell you one instance I observed among a 
hundred. Lord Mauleverer is rather deaf, and he imagined, 
in conversation, that my father said one thing — it was upon 
a very trifling subject, the speech of some member of parlia- 
ment [the lawyer smiled], — when in reality he meant to say 
another. Lord Mauleverer, in the warmest manner in the 
world, chimed in with him, appeared thoroughly of his opin- 
ion, applauded his sentiments, and wished the whole country 
of his mind. Suddenly my father spoke; Lord Mauleverer 
bent down his ear, and found that the sentiments he had so 
lauded were exactly those my father the least favoured. No 
sooner did he make this discovery than he wheeled round 
again, — dexterously and gracefully, I allow; condemned all 
that he had before extolled, and extolled all that he had before 
abused ! ” 

“And is that all, Lucy?” said Brandon, with a keener sneer 
on his lip than the occasion warranted. “Why, that is what 
every one does ; only some more gravely than others. Maul- 
everer in society, I at the bar, the minister in parliament, 
friend to friend, lover to mistress, mistress to lover, — half 
of us are employed in saying white is black, and the other 
half in swearing that black is white. There is only one 
difference, my pretty niece, between the clever man and the 
fool : the fool says what is false while the colours stare in his 
face and give him the lie ; but the clever man takes as it were 
a brush and literally turns the black into white and the 
white into black before he makes the assertion, which is then 
true. The fool changes, and is a liar; the clever man makes 
the colours change, and is a genius. But this is not for your 
young years yet, Lucy.” 

“ But I can’t see the necessity of seeming to agree with peo- 
ple,” said Lucy, simply; “ surely they would be just as well 
pleased if you differed from them civilly and with respect? ” 

11 


162 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“No, Lucy,” said Brandon, still sneering; “to be liked, it 
is not necessary to be anything but compliant. Lie, cheat, 
make every word a snare, and every act a forgery ; but never 
contradict. Agree with people, and they make a couch for 
you in their hearts. You know the story of Dante and the 
buffoon. Both were entertained at the court of the vain 
pedant, who called himself Prince Scaliger, — the former 
poorly, the latter sumptuously. 4 How comes it, ’ said the 
buffoon to the poet, 4 that I am so rich and you so poor? ’ 4 I 

shall be as rich as you,’ was the stinging and true reply, 

4 whenever I can find a patron as like myself as Prince 
Scaliger is like you! ’ ” 

44 Yet my birds,” said Lucy, caressing the goldfinch, which 
nestled to her bosom, “are not like me, and I love them. 
Nay, I often think I could love those better who differ from 
me the most. I feel it so in books, — when, for instance, I 
read a novel or a play; and you, uncle, I like almost in pro- 
portion to my perceiving in myself nothing in common with 
you.” 

44 Yes,” said Brandon, 44 you have in common with me a love 
for old stories of Sir Hugo and Sir Rupert, and all the other 
4 Sirs 9 of our mouldered and bygone race. So you shall sing 
me the ballad about Sir John de Brandon, and the dragon he 
slew in the Holy Land. We will adjourn to the drawing- 
room, not to disturb your father.” 

Lucy agreed, took her uncle’s arm, repaired to the drawing- 
room, and seating herself at the harpsichord, sang to an 
inspiriting yet somewhat rude air the family ballad her uncle 
had demanded. 

It would have been amusing to note in the rigid face of the 
hardened and habitual man of peace and parchments a certain 
enthusiasm which ever and anon crossed his cheek, as the verses 
of the ballad rested on some allusion to the knightly House 
of Brandon and its old renown. It was an early prejudice, 
breaking out despite of himself, — a flash of character, stricken 
from the hard fossil in which it was imbedded. One would 
have supposed that the* silliest of all prides (for the pride of 
money, though meaner, is less senseless), family pride, was 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 163 

the last weakness which at that time the callous and astute 
lawyer would have confessed, even to himself. 

“Lucy,” said Brandon, as the song ceased, and he gazed on 
his beautiful niece with a certain pride in his aspect, “ I long 
to witness your first appearance in the world. This lodging, 
my dear, is not fit — But pardon me! what I was about to 
say is this : your father and yourself are here at my invita- 
tion, and in my house you must dwell; you are my guests, 
not mine host and hostess. I have therefore already directed 
my servant to secure me a house and provide the necessary 
establishment; and I make no doubt, as he is a quick fellow, 
that within three days all will be ready. You must then be 
the magnet of my abode, Lucy; and meanwhile you must 
explain this to my brother, and — for you know his jealous 
hospitality — obtain his acquiescence.” 

“But — ” began Lucy. 

“But me no buts,” said Brandon, quickly, but with an 
affectionate tone of wilfulness; “and now, as I feel very 
much fatigued with my journey, you must allow me to seek 
my own room.” 

“ I will conduct you to it myself, ” said Lucy, for she was 
anxious to show her father’s brother the care and forethought 
which she had lavished on her arrangements for his comfort. 
Brandon followed her into an apartment which his eye knew 
at a glance had been subjected to that female superintendence 
which makes such uses from what men reject as insignificant; 
and he thanked her with more than his usual amenity, for the 
grace which had presided over, and the kindness which had dic- 
tated her preparations. As soon as he was left alone, he wheeled 
his armchair near the clear, bright fire, and resting his face 
upon his hand, in the attitude of a man who prepares himself 
as it were for the indulgence of meditation, he muttered, — 

“Yes! these women are, first, what Nature makes them, 
and that is good; next, what we make them, and that is evil! 
Now, could I persuade myself that we ought to be nice as to 
the use we put these poor puppets to, I should shrink from 
enforcing the destiny which I have marked for this girl. But 
that is a pitiful consideration, and he is but a silly player who 


164 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


loses his money for the sake of preserving his counters. So 
the young lady must go as another score to the fortunes of 
William Brandon. After all, who suffers? Not she. She 
will have wealth, rank, honour. I shall suffer, to yield so 
pretty and pure a gem to the coronet of — Faugh! How I 
despise that dog; but how I could hate, crush, mangle him, 
could I believe that he despised me! Could he do so? Umph! 
No, I have resolved myself that is impossible. Well, let me 
hope that matrimonial point will be settled; and now let me 
consider what next step I shall take for myself, — myself, ay, 
only myself! With me perishes the last male of Brandon; 
but the light shall not go out under a bushel.” 

As he said this, the soliloquist sunk into a more absorbed 
and silent revery, from which he was disturbed by the entrance 
of his servant. Brandoh, who was never a dreamer save 
when alone, broke at once from his reflections. 

“You have obeyed my orders, Barlow?” said he. 

“Yes, sir,” answered the domestic. “I have taken the 
best house yet unoccupied; and when Mrs. Roberts [Bran- 
don’s housekeeper] arrives from London, everything will, I 
trust, be exactly to your wishes.” 

“Good! And you gave my note to Lord Mauleverer?” 

“With my own hands, sir; his lordship will await you at 
home all to-morrow.” 

“Very well! and now, Barlow, see that your room is within 
call [bells, though known, were not common at that day], and 
give out that I am gone to bed, and must not be disturbed. 
What ’s the hour? ” 

“Just on the stroke of ten, sir.” 

“ Place on that table my letter-case and the inkstand. Look 
in, to help me to undress, at half -past one ; I shall go to bed 
at that hour. And — stay — be sure, Barlow, that my brother 
believes me retired for the night. He does not know my 
habits, and will vex himself if he thinks I sit up so late in 
my present state of health.” 

Drawing the table with its writing appurtenances near to 
his master, the servant left Brandon once more to his thoughts 
or his occupations. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


165 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Servant. Get away, I say, wid dat nasty bell. 

Punch. Do you call this a bell? (patting it.) It is an organ. 

Servant. I say it is a bell, — a nasty bell ! 

Punch. I say it is an organ ( striking him with it). What do you say it is 
now? 

Servant. An organ, Mr. Punch ! 

The Tragical Comedy of Punch and Judy. 

The next morning, before Lucy and her father had left 
their apartments, Brandon, who was a remarkably early riser, 
had disturbed the luxurious Mauleverer in his first slumber. 
Although the courtier possessed a villa some miles from Bath, 
he preferred a lodging in the town, both as being warmer than 
a rarely inhabited country-house, and as being to an indolent 
man more immediately convenient for the gayeties and the 
waters of the medicinal city. As soon as the earl had rubbed 
his eyes, stretched himself, and prepared himself for the un- 
timeous colloquy, Brandon poured forth his excuses for the 
hour he had chosen for a visit. “Mention it not, my dear 
Brandon,” said the good-natured nobleman, with a sigh; “I 
am glad at any hour to see you, and I am very sure that what 
you have to communicate is always worth listening to.” 

“ It was only upon public business, though of rather a more 
important description than usual, that I ventured to disturb 
you, ” answered Brandon, seating himself on a chair by the bed- 
side. “ This morning, an hour ago, I received by private express 
a letter from London, stating that a new arrangement will posi- 
tively be made in the Cabinet, — nay, naming the very promo- 
tions and changes. I confess that as my name occurred, as 
also your own, in these nominations, I was anxious to have 
the benefit of your necessarily accurate knowledge on the sub' 
ject, as well as of your advice.” 


166 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“ Really, Brandon,” said Mauleverer, with a half -peevish 
smile, “ any other hour in the day would have done for ‘ the 
business of the nation/ as the newspapers call that trouble- 
some farce we go through; and I had imagined you would not 
have broken my nightly slumbers except for something of 
real importance, — the discovery of a new beauty or the inven- 
tion of a new dish.” 

“Neither the one nor the other could you have expected 
from me, my dear lord,” rejoined Brandon. “You know the 
dry trifles in which a lawyer’s life wastes itself away; and 
beauties and dishes have no attraction for us, except the 
former be damsels deserted, and the latter patents invaded. 
But my news, after all, is worth hearing, unless you have 
heard it before.” 

“Not I! but I suppose I shall hear it in the course of the 
day. Pray Heaven I be not sent for to attend some plague of 
a council. Begin!” 

“ In the first place Lord Duberly resolves to resign, unless 
this negotiation for peace be made a Cabinet question.” 

“Pshaw! let him resign. I have opposed the peace so long 
that it is out of the question. Of course, Lord Wansted will 
not think of it, and he may count on my boroughs. A peace! 
— shameful, disgraceful, dastardly proposition ! ” 

“But, my dear lord, my letter says that this unexpected 
firmness on the part of Lord Duberly has produced so great a 
sensation that, seeing the impossibility of forming a durable 
Cabinet without him, the king has consented to the negotia- 
tion, and Duberly stays in! ” 

“ The devil ! — what next? ” 

“ Raffden and Sternhold go out in favour of Baldwin and 
Charlton, and in the hope that you will lend your aid to — ” 

“ I ! ” said Lord Mauleverer, very angrily, — “I lend my 
aid to Baldwin, the Jacobin, and Charlton, the son of a 
brewer ! ” 

“Very true!” continued Brandon. “But in the hope that 
you might be persuaded to regard the new arrangements with 
an indulgent eye, you are talked of instead of the Duke of 
for the vacant garter and the office of chamberlain.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


167 


“You don’t mean it!” cried Mauleverer, starting from his bed. 
“ A few other (but, I hear, chiefly legal) promotions are to 
be made. Among the rest, my learned brother, the democrat 
Sarsden, is to have a silk gown; Cromwell is to be attorney- 
general; and, between ourselves, they have offered me a 
judgeship.” 

“But the garter!” said Mauleverer, scarcely hearing the 
rest of the lawyer’s news, — “ the whole object, aim, and 
ambition of my life. How truly kind in the king! After 
all,” continued the earl, laughing, and throwing himself back, 
“opinions are variable, truth is not uniform. The times 
change, not we ; and we must have peace instead of war ! ” 
“Your maxims are indisputable, and the conclusion you 
come to is excellent,” said Brandon. 

“Why, you and I, my dear fellow,” said the earl, “who 
know men, and who have lived all our lives in the world, 
must laugh behind the scenes at the cant we wrap in tinsel, 
and send out to stalk across the stage. We know that our 
Coriolanus of Tory integrity is a corporal kept by a prostitute, 
and the Brutus of Whig liberty is a lacquey turned out of 
place for stealing the spoons; but we must not tell this to the 
world. So, Brandon, you must write me a speech for the next 
session, and be sure it has plenty of general maxims, and con- 
cludes with ‘ my bleeding country ! ’ ” 

The lawyer smiled. “You consent then to the expulsion of 
Sternhold and Raffden? for, after all, that is the question. 
Our British vessel, as the d — d metaphor-mongers call the 
State, carries the public good safe in the hold like brandy; 
and it is only when fear, storm, or the devil makes the rogues 
quarrel among themselves and break up the casks, that one 
gets above a thimbleful at a time. We should go on fighting 
with the rest of the world forever, if the ministers had not 
taken to fight among themselves.” 

“As for Sternhold,” said the earl, “’t is a vulgar dog, and 
voted for economical reform. Besides, I don’t know him; he 
may go to the devil, for aught I care ; but Raffden must be 
dealt handsomely with, or, despite the garter, I will fall back 
among the Whigs, who, after all, give tolerable dinners.” 


168 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“But why, my lord, must Raffden be treated better than 
his brother recusant?” 

“ Because he sent me, in the handsomest manner possible, a 
pipe of that wonderful Madeira, which you know I consider 
the chief grace of my cellars, and he gave up a canal naviga- 
tion bill, which would have enriched his whole county, when 
he knew that it would injure my property. No, Brandon, 
curse public cant! we know what that is. But we are gentle- 
men, and our private friends must not be thrown overboard, 
— unless, at least, we do it in the civilest manner we can.” 

“Fear not,” said the lawyer; “you have only to say the 
word, and the Cabinet can cook up an embassy to Owhyhee, 
and send Raffden there with a stipend of five thousand a year. ” 

“Ah! that ’s well thought of; or we might give him a grant 
of a hundred thousand acres in one of the colonies, or let him 
buy crown land at a discount of eighty per cent. So that ’s 
settled.” 

“And now, my dear friend,” said Brandon, “I will tell you 
frankly why I come so early ; I am required to grv e a hasty 
answer to the proposal I have received, namely, of the judge- 
ship. Your opinion?” 

“A judgeship! you a judge? What! forsake your brilliant 
career for so petty a dignity? You jest! ” 

“Not at all. Listen. You know how bitterly I have 
opposed this peace, and what hot enemies I have made among 
the new friends of the administration. On the one hand, 
these enemies insist on sacrificing me; and on the other, if I 
were to stay in the Lower House and speak for what I have 
before opposed, I should forfeit the support of a great portion 
of my own party. Hated by one body, and mistrusted by the 
other, a seat in the House of Commons ceases to be an object. 
It is proposed that I should retire on the dignity of a judge, 
with the positive and pledged though secret promise of the 
first vacancy among the chiefs. The place of chief -justice or 
chief-baron is indeed the only fair remuneration for my sur- 
render of the gains of my profession, and the abandonment of 
my parliamentary and legal career; the title, which will of 
course be attached to it, might go (at least, by an exertion 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


169 


of interest) to the eldest son of my niece, — in case she mar- 
ried a commoner, — or,” added he, after a pause, “her second 
son in case she married a peer.” 

“ Ha, true ! ” said Mauleverer, quickly, and as if struck by 
some sudden thought; “and your charming niece, Brandon, 
would be worthy of any honour, either to her children or her- 
self. You do not know how struck I was with her. There is 
something so graceful in her simplicity; and in her manner 
of smoothing down the little rugosities of Warlock House 
there was so genuine and so easy a dignity that I declare I 
almost thought myself young again, and capable of the self- 
cheat of believing myself in love. But, oh! Brandon, imagine 
me at your brother’s board, — me, for whom ortolans are too 
substantial, and who feel, when I tread, the slightest inequal- 
ity in the carpets of Tournay, — imagine me, dear Brandon, 
in a black wainscot room, hung round with your ancestors 
in brown wigs with posies in their button-hole ; an immense 
fire on one side, and a thorough draught on the other; a huge 
circle of beef before me, smoking like Vesuvius, and twice as 
large; a plateful (the plate was pewter, — is there not a metal 
so ‘called?) of this mingled flame and lava sent under my very 
nostril, and upon pain of ill-breeding to be despatched down 
my proper mouth; an old gentleman in fustian breeches and 
worsted stockings, by way of a butler, filling me a can of ale, 
and your worthy brother asking me if I would not prefer port; 
a lean footman in livery, — such a livery, ye gods ! — scarlet, 
blue, yellow, and green, a rainbow ill made! — on the opposite 
side of the table, looking at the ‘ Lord 9 with eyes and mouth 
equally open, and large enough to swallow me; and your 
excellent brother himself at the head of the table glowing 
through the mists of the beef, like the rising sun in a sign- 
post; and then, Brandon, turning from this image, behold 
beside me the fair, delicate, aristocratic, yet simple loveli- 
ness of your niece, and — But you look angry; I have 
offended you ? ” 

It was high time for Mauleverer to ask that question, for 
during the whole of the earl’s recital the dark face of his 
companion had literally burned with rage; and here we may 


170 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


observe how generally selfishness, which makes the man of 
the world, prevents its possessor, by a sort of paradox, from 
being consummately so. For Mauleverer, occupied by the 
pleasure he felt at his own wit, and never having that magic 
sympathy with others which creates the incessantly keen 
observer, had not for a moment thought that he was offend- 
ing to the quick the hidden pride of the lawyer. Nay, so 
little did he suspect Brandon’s real weaknesses that he 
thought him a philosopher who would have laughed alike 
at principles and people, however near to him might be the 
latter, and however important the former. Mastering by a 
single effort, which restored his cheek to its usual steady hue, 
the outward signs of his displeasure, Brandon rejoined, — 

“ Offend me ! By no means, my dear lord. I do not wonder 
at your painful situation in an old country -gentleman’s house, 
which has not for centuries offered scenes fit for the presence 
of so distinguished a guest, — never, I may say, since the time 
when Sir Charles de Brandon entertained Elizabeth at War- 
lock, and your ancestor (you know my old musty studies on 
those points of obscure antiquity), John Mauleverer, who was 
a noted goldsmith of London, supplied the plate for the 
occasion.” 

“Fairly retorted,” said Mauleverer, smiling; for though the 
earl had a great contempt for low birth set on high places in 
other men, he was utterly void of pride in his own family, — 
“fairly retorted! But I never meant anything else but a 
laugh at your brother’s housekeeping, — a joke surely per- 
mitted to a man whose own fastidiousness on these matters is 
so standing a jest. But, by heavens, Brandon! to turn from 
these subjects, your niece is the prettiest girl I have seen for 
twenty years ; and if she would forget my being the descend- 
ant of John Mauleverer, the noted goldsmith of London, she 
may be Lady Mauleverer as soon as she pleases.” 

“Nay, now, let us be serious, and talk of the judgeship,” 
said Brandon, affecting to treat the proposal as a joke. 

“ By the soul of Sir Charles de Brandon, I am serious ! ” 
cried the earl; “and as a proof of it, I hope you will let me 
pay my respects to your niece to-day, — not with my offer in 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


171 


my hand yet, for it must be a love match on both sides.” And 
the earl, glancing towards an opposite glass, which reflected 
his attenuated but comely features beneath his velvet night- 
cap trimmed with Mechlin, laughed half -triumphantly as he 
spoke. 

A sneer just passed the lips of Brandon, and as instantly 
vanished, while Mauleverer continued, — 

“ And as for the judgeship, dear Brandon, I advise you to 
accept it, though you know best ; and I do think no man will 
stand a fairer chance of the chief-justiceship, — or, though it 
be somewhat unusual for ‘ common ’ lawyers, why not the 
woolsack itself? As you say, the second son of your niece 
might inherit the dignity of a peerage ! ” 

“Well, I will consider of it favourably,” said Brandon; and 
soon afterwards he left the nobleman to renew his broken 
repose. 

“I can’t laugh at that man,” said Mauleverer to himself, as 
he turned round in his bed, “ though he has much that I should 
laugh at in another; and, faith, there is one little matter I 
might well scorn him for, if I were not a philosopher. ’T is 
a pretty girl, his niece, and with proper instructions might do 
one credit; besides, she has £60,000 ready money; and, faith, 
I have not a shilling for my own pleasure, though I have — or 
alas ! had — fifty thousand a year for that of my establishment ! 
In all probability she will be the lawyer’s heiress, and he must 
have made at least as much again as her portion; nor is he, 
poor devil, a very good life. Moreover, if he rise to the 
peerage? and the second son — Well! well! it will not be 
such a bad match for the goldsmith’s descendant either! ” 
With that thought, Lord Mauleverer fell asleep. He rose 
about noon, dressed himself with unusual pains, and was just 
going forth on a visit to Miss Brandon, when he suddenly 
remembered that her uncle had not mentioned her address or 
his own. He referred to the lawyer’s note of the preceding 
evening; no direction was inscribed on it; and Mauleverer 
was forced, with much chagrin, to forego for that day the 
pleasure he had promised himself. 

In truth, the wary lawyer, who, as we have said, despised 


172 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


show and outward appearances as much as any man, was yet 
sensible of their effect even in the eyes of a lover; and more- 
over, Lord Mauleverer was one whose habits of life were cal- 
culated to arouse a certain degree of vigilance on points of 
household pomp even in the most unobservant. Brandon 
therefore resolved that Lucy should not be visited by her 
admirer till the removal to their new abode was effected; nor 
was it till the third day from that on which Mauleverer had 
held with Brandon the interview we have recorded, that the 
earl received a note from Brandon, seemingly turning only on 
political matters, but inscribed with the address and direction 
in full form. 

Mauleverer answered it in person. He found Lucy at home, 
and more beautiful than ever; and from that day his mind 
was made up, as the mammas say, and his visits became 
constant. 


CHAPTER XY. 

There is a festival where knights and dames, 

And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims, 

Appear. 

*T is he, — how came he thence? What doth he here ? 

Lara . 

There are two charming situations in life for a woman, — 
one, the first freshness of heiress-ship and beauty; the other,, 
youthful widowhood, with a large jointure. It was at least 
Lucy’s fortune to enjoy the first. No sooner was she fairly 
launched into the gay world than she became the object of uni- 
versal idolatry. Crowds followed her wherever she moved: 
nothing was talked of or dreamed of, toasted or betted on, but 
Lucy Brandon; even her simplicity, and utter ignorance of 
the arts of fine life, enhanced the eclat of her reputation. 
Somehow or other, young people of the gentler sex are rarely 
ill-bred, even in their eccentricities ; and there is often a great 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


173 


deal of grace in inexperience. Her uncle, who accompanied 
her everywhere, himself no slight magnet of attraction, 
viewed her success with a complacent triumph which he 
suffered no one but her father or herself to detect. To the 
smooth coolness of his manner, nothing would have seemed 
more foreign than pride at the notice gained by a beauty, or 
exultation at any favour won from the caprices of fashion. 
As for the good old squire, one would have imagined him far 
more the invalid than his brother. He was scarcely ever 
seen; for though he went everywhere, he was one of those 
persons who sink into a corner the moment they enter a 
room. Whoever discovered him in his retreat, held out 
their hands, and exclaimed, “God bless me! you here! We 
have not seen you for this age! ” How and then, if in a very 
dark niche of the room a card-table had been placed, the 
worthy gentleman toiled through an obscure rubber; but 
more frequently he sat with his hands clasped and his mouth 
open, counting the number of candles in the room, or calcu- 
lating “when that stupid music would be over.” 

Lord Mauleverer, though a polished and courteous man, 
whose great object was necessarily to ingratiate himself with 
the father of his intended bride, had a horror of being bored, 
which surpassed all other feelings in his mind. He could not 
therefore persuade himself to submit to the melancholy duty 
of listening to the squire’s “linked speeches long drawn out.” 
He always glided by the honest man’s station, seemingly in 
an exceeding hurry, with a “Ah, my dear sir, how do you do? 
How delighted I am to see you! And your incomparable 
daughter? Oh, there she is! Pardon me, dear sir, — you see 
my attraction.” 

Lucy, indeed, who never forgot any one (except herself 
occasionally), sought her father’s retreat as often as she was 
able; but her engagements were so incessant that she no 
sooner lost one partner than she was claimed and carried off 
by another. However, the squire bore his solitude with tol- 
erable cheerfulness, and always declared that “he was very 
well amused; although balls and concerts were necessarily a 
little dull to one who came from a fine old place like Warlock 


174 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Manor-house, and it was not the same thing that pleased 
young ladies (for, to them, that fiddling and giggling till two 
o’clock in the morning might be a very pretty way of killing 
time) and their papas ! ” 

What considerably added to Lucy’s celebrity was the 
marked notice and admiration of a man so high in rank 
and ton as Lord Mauleverer. That personage, who still 
retained much of a youthful mind and temper, and who was 
in his nature more careless than haughty, preserved little or 
no state in his intercourse with the social revellers at Bath. 
He cared not whither he went, so that he was in the train of 
the young beauty; and the most fastidious nobleman of the 
English court was seen in every second and third rate set of a 
great watering-place, — the attendant, the flirt, and often the 
ridicule of the daughter of an obscure and almost insignificant 
country squire. Despite the honour of so distinguished a 
lover, and despite all the novelties of her situation, the pretty 
head of Lucy Brandon was as yet, however, perfectly un- 
turned; and as for her heart, the only impression that it had 
ever received was made by that wandering guest of the village 
rector, whom she had never again seen, but who yet clung to 
her imagination, invested not only with all the graces which 
in right of a singularly handsome person he possessed, but 
with those to which he never could advance a claim, — more 
dangerous to her peace, for the very circumstance of their 
origin in her fancy, not his merits. 

They had now been some little time at Bath, and Brandon’s 
brief respite was pretty nearly expired, when a public ball of 
uncommon and manifold attraction was announced. It was 
to be graced not only by the presence of all the surrounding 
families, but also by that of royalty itself; it being an 
acknowledged fact that people dance much better and eat 
much more supper when any relation to a king is present. 

“I must stay for this ball, Lucy,” said Brandon, who, after 
spending the day with Lord Mauleverer, returned home in a 
mood more than usually cheerful, — “I must stay for this one 
ball, Lucy, and witness your complete triumph, even though it 
will be necessary to leave you the very next morning.” 


rAUL CLIFFORD. 


175 


“So soon!” cried Lucy. 

• “ So soon ! ” echoed the uncle, with a smile. “How good you 
are to speak thus to an old valetudinarian, whose company 
must have fatigued you to death! Nay, no pretty denials! 
But the great object of my visit to this place is accomplished : 
I have seen you, I have witnessed your d6but in the great 
world, with, I may say, more than a father’s exultation, and 
I go back to my dry pursuits with the satisfaction of thinking 
our old and withered genealogical tree has put forth one blos- 
som worthy of its freshest day.” 

“Uncle! ” said Lucy, reprovingly, and holding up her taper 
finger with an arch smile, mingling with a blush, in which the 
woman’s vanity spoke, unknown to herself. 

“And why that look, Lucy? ” said Brandon. 

“Because — because — well, no matter! you have been bred 
to that trade in which, as you say yourself, men tell untruths 
for others till they lose all truth for themselves. But let us 
talk of you, not me; are you really well enough to leave us?” 

Simple and even cool as the words of Lucy’s question, when 
written, appear, in her mouth they took so tender, so anxious 
a tone, that Brandon, who had no friend nor wife nor child, 
nor any one in his household in whom interest in his health 
or welfare was a thing of course, and who was consequently 
wholly unaccustomed to the accent of kindness, felt himself 
of a sudden touched and stricken. 

“Why, indeed, Lucy,” said he, in a less artificial voice 
than that in which he usually spoke, “ I should like still to 
profit by your cares, and forget my infirmities and pains in 
your society; but I cannot: the tide of events, like that 
of nature, waits not our pleasure ! ” 

“ But we may take our own time for setting sail ! ” said 
Lucy. 

“Ay, this comes of talking in metaphor,” rejoined Brandon, 
smiling; “they who begin it always get the worst of it. In 
plain words, dear Lucy, I can give no more time to my 
own ailments. A lawyer cannot play truant in term-time 
without — ” 

“Losing a few guineas! ” said Lucy, interrupting him. 


176 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Worse than that, — his practice and his name.” 

“Better those than health and peace of mind.” 

“Out on you, no!” said Brandon, quickly, and almost 
fiercely. “We waste all the greenness and pith of our life 
in striving to gain a distinguished slavery; and when it is 
gained, we must not think that an humble independence would 
have been better. If we ever admit that thought, what fools, 
what lavish fools, we have been! No!” continued Brandon, 
after a momentary pause, and in a tone milder and gayer, 
though not less characteristic of the man’s stubbornness of 
will, “after losing all youth’s enjoyments and manhood’s leis- 
ure, in order that in age the mind, the all-conquering mind, 
should break its way at last into the applauding opinions of 
men, I should be an effeminate idler indeed, did I suffer, so 
long as its jarring parts hold together, or so long as I have 
the power to command its members, this weak body to frus- 
trate the labour of its better and nobler portion, and command 
that which it is ordained to serve.” 

Lucy knew not while she listened, half in fear, half in 
admiration, to her singular relation, that at the very moment 
he thus spoke, his disease was preying upon him in one of its 
most relentless moods, without the power of wringing from 
him a single outward token of his torture. But she wanted 
nothing to increase her pity and affection for a man who in 
consequence, perhaps, of his ordinary surface of worldly and 
cold properties of temperament never failed to leave an indel- 
ible impression on all who had ever seen that temperament 
broken through by deeper though often by more evil feelings. 

“Shall you go to Lady ’s rout?” asked Brandon, easily 

sliding back into common topics. “ Lord Mauleverer requested 
me to ask you.” 

“That depends on you and my father.” 

“If on me, I answer yes,” said Brandon. “I like hearing 
Mauleverer, especially among persons who do not understand 
him. There is a refined and subtle sarcasm running through 
the commonplaces of his conversation, which cuts the good 
fools, like the invisible sword in the fable, that lopped off 
heads without occasioning the owners any other sensation 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


177 


than a pleasing and self-complacent titillation. How im- 
measurably superior he is in manner and address to all we 
meet here! Does it not strike you?” 

“Yes — no — I can’t say that it does exactly,” rejoined 
Lucy. 

“Is that confusion tender?” thought Brandon. 

“In a word,” continued Lucy, “Lord Mauleverer is one 
whom I think pleasing without fascination, and amusing 
without brilliancy. He is evidently accomplished in mind 
and graceful in manner, and withal the most uninteresting 
person I ever met.” 

“Women have not often thought so,” said Brandon. 

“I cannot believe that they can think otherwise.” 

A certain expression, partaking of scorn, played over Bran- 
don’s hard features. It was a noticeable trait in him, that 
while he was most anxious to impress Lucy with a favourable 
opinion of Lord Mauleverer, he was never quite able to mask 
a certain satisfaction at any jest at the earl’s expense, or any 
opinion derogatory to his general character for pleasing the 
opposite sex; and this satisfaction was no sooner conceived 
than it was immediately combated by the vexation he felt 
that Lucy did not seem to share his own desire that she 
should become the wife of the courtier. There appeared as 
if in that respect there was a contest in his mind between 
interest on one hand and private dislike or contempt on the 
other. 

“You judge women wrongly!” said Brandon. “Ladies 
never know each other; of all persons, Mauleverer is best 
calculated to win them, and experience has proved my asser- 
tion. The proudest lot I know for a woman would be the 
thorough conquest of Lord Mauleverer; but it is impossible. 
He may be gallant, but he will never be subdued. He defies 
the whole female world, and with justice and impunity. 
Enough of him. Sing to me, dear Lucy.” 

The time for the ball approached; and Lucy, who was a 
charming girl and had nothing of the angel about her, was 
sufficiently fond of gayety, dancing, music, and admiration to 
feel her heart beat high at the expectation of the event. 

12 


178 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


At last the day itself came. Brandon dined alone with 
Mauleverer, having made the arrangement that he, with the 
earl, was to join his brother and niece at the ball. Maul- 
everer, who hated state, except on great occasions, when no 
man displayed it with a better grace, never suffered his ser- 
vants to wait at dinner when he was alone or with one of his 
peculiar friends. The attendants remained without, and were 
summoned at will by a bell laid beside the host. 

The conversation was unrestrained. 

“I am perfectly certain, Brandon,” said Mauleverer, “that 
if you were to live tolerably well, you would soon get the 
better of your nervous complaints. It is all poverty of blood, 
believe me. Some more of the fins, eh? — No! Oh, hang 
your abstemiousness; it is d — d unfriendly to eat so little! 
Talking of fins and friends, Heaven defend me from ever 
again forming an intimacy with a pedantic epicure, especially 
if he puns ! ” 

“ Why, what has a pedant to do with fins? ” 

“I will tell you, — ah, this madeira! — I suggested to Lord 
Dareville, who affects the gourmand, what a capital thing a 
dish all fins (turbot’s fins) might be made. ‘ Capital! ’ said 
he, in a rapture; ‘dine on it with me to-morrow.’ ‘ Volon- 
tiers ! ’ said I. The next day, after indulging in a pleasing 
re very all the morning as to the manner in which Dareville’s 
cook, w'ho is not without genius, would accomplish the grand 
idea, I betook myself punctually to my engagement. Would 
you believe it? When the cover was removed, the sacrile- 
gious dog of an Amphitryon had put into the dish Cicero’s 
‘De Finibus.’ ‘ There is a work all fins! ’ said he. 

“Atrocious jest! ” exclaimed Brandon, solemnly. 

“Was it not? Whenever the gastronomists set up a reli- 
gious inquisition, I trust they will roast every impious rascal 
who treats the divine mystery with levity. Pun upon cook- 
ing, indeed! A propos of Dareville, he is to come into the 
administration.” 

“You astonish me!” said Brandon. “I never heard that; 
I don’t know him. He has vevj little power; has he any 
talent? ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


179 


“Yes, a very great one, — acquired , though.” 

“What is it?” 

“ A pretty wife ! ” 

“My lord!” exclaimed Brandon, abruptly, and half rising 
from his seat. 

Mauleverer looked up hastily, and on seeing the expression 
of his companion’s face coloured deeply; there was a silence 
for some moments. 

“Tell me,” said Brandon, indifferently, helping himself to 
vegetables, for he seldom touched meat; and a more amusing 
contrast can scarcely be conceived than that between the earn- 
est epicurism of Mauleverer and the careless contempt of the 
sublime art manifested by his guest, — “tell me, you who 
necessarily know everything, whether the government really 
is settled, — whether you are to have the garter, and I (mark 
the difference!) the judgeship.” 

“Why so, I imagine, it will be arranged; namely, if you 
will consent to hang up the rogues instead of living by the 
fools ! ” 

“One may unite both! ” returned Brandon. “But I believe, 
in general, it is vice versa ; for we live by the rogues, and it 
is only the fools we are able to hang up. You ask me if I 
will take the judgeship. I would not — no, I would rather 
cut my hand off,” and the lawyer spoke with great bitterness, 
“ forsake my present career, despite all the obstacles that now 
encumber it, did I think that this miserable body would suffer 
me for two years longer to pursue it.” 

“You shock me!” said Mauleverer, a little affected, but 
nevertheless applying the cayenne to his cucumber with his 
usual unerring nicety of tact, — “ you shock me ; but you are 
considerably better than you were.” 

“It is not,” continued Brandon, who was rather speaking to 
himself than to his friend , — “it is not that I am unable to 
conquer the pain and to master the recreant nerves ; but I feel 
myself growing weaker and weaker beneath the continual 
exertion of my remaining powers, and I shall die before I 
have gained half my objects, if I do not leave the labours 
which are literally tearing me to pieces.” 


180 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“But,” said Lord Mauleverer, who was the idlest of men, 
“the judgeship is not an easy sinecure.” 

“No ; but there is less demand on the mind in that station 
than in my present one;” and Brandon paused before he con- 
tinued. “Candidly, Mauleverer, you do not think they will 
deceive me, — you do not think they mean to leave me to 
this political death without writing £ Resurgam ’ over the 
hatchment? ” 

“ They dare not ! ” said Mauleverer, quaffing his fourth 
glass of madeira. 

“Well, I have decided on my change of life,” said the 
lawyer, with a slight sigh. 

“So have I on my change of opinion,” chimed in the earl. 
“I will tell you what opinions seem to me like.” 

“What?” said Brandon, abstractedly. 

“ Trees ! ” answered Mauleverer, quaintly. “ If they can be 
made serviceable by standing, don’t part with a stick; but 
when they are of that growth that sells well, or whenever 
they shut out a fine prospect, cut them down, and pack them off 
by all manner of means! — And now for the second course.” 

“I wonder,” said the earl, when our political worthies were 
again alone, “ whether there ever existed a minister who cared 
three straws for the people; many care for their party , but as 
for the country — - ” 

“ It is all fiddlestick ! ” added the lawyer, with more signifi- 
cance than grace. 

“Right; it is all fiddlestick, as you tersely express it. 
King, Constitution, and Church, forever! which, being inter- 
preted, means, first, King or Crown influence, judgeships, and 
garters; secondly, Constitution, or fees to the lawyer, places 
to the statesman, laws for the rich, and Game Laws for the 
poor; thirdly, Church, or livings for our younger sons, and 
starvings for their curates ! ” 

“ Ha, ha ! ” said Brandon, laughing sardonically ; “ we know 
human nature ! ” 

“ And how it may be gulled! ” quoth the courtier. “ Here ’s 
a health to your niece; and may it not be long before you 
hail her as your friend’s bride! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


181 


“Bride, et cetera ,” said Brandon, with a sneer meant only 
for his own satisfaction. “But mark me, my dear lord, do 
not be too sure of her. She is a singular girl, and of more 
independence than the generality of women. She will not 
think of your rank and station in estimating you; she will 
think only of their owner; and pardon me if I suggest to you, 
who know the sex so well, one plan that it may not be unad- 
visable for you to pursue. Don’t let her fancy you entirely 
hers; rouse her jealousy, pique her pride, let her think you 
unconquerable, and unless she is unlike all women, she will 
want to conquer you.” 

The earl smiled. “ I must take my chance ! ” said he, with 
a confident tone. 

“ The hoary coxcomb ! ” muttered Brandon, between his 
teeth; “now will his folly spoil all.” 

“ And that reminds me, ” continued Mauleverer, “ that time 
wanes, and dinner is not over; let us not hurry, but let us 
be silent, to enjoy the more. These truffles in champagne, — 
do taste them; they would raise the dead.” 

The lawyer smiled, and accepted the kindness, though he 
left the delicacy untouched; and Mauleverer, whose soul was 
in his plate, saw not the heartless rejection. 

Meanwhile the youthful beauty had already entered the 
theatre of pleasure, and was now seated with the squire at 
the upper end of the half-filled ball-room. 

A gay lady of the fashion at that time, and of that half and 
half rank to which belonged the aristocracy of Bath, — one 
of those curious persons we meet with in the admirable novels 
of Miss Burney, as appertaining to the order of fine ladies, — 
made the trio with our heiress and her father, and pointed 
out to them by name the various characters that entered the 
apartments. She was still in the full tide of scandal, when 
an unusual sensation was visible in the environs of the door; 
three strangers of marked mien, gay dress, and an air which, 
though differing in each, was in all alike remarkable for a 
sort of “ dashing ” assurance, made their entree. One was of 
uncommon height, and possessed of an exceedingly fine head 
of hair; another was of a more quiet and unpretending aspect, 


182 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


but nevertheless he wore upon his face a supercilious yet not 
ill-humoured expression; the third was many years younger 
than his companions, strikingly handsome in face and figure, 
altogether of a better taste in dress, and possessing a manner 
that, though it had equal ease, was not equally noticeable for 
impudence and swagger. 

“Who can those be?” said Lucy’s female friend, in a won- 
dering tone. “I never saw them before, — they must be great 
people, — they have all the airs of persons of quality ! Dear, 
how odd that I should not know them ! ” 

While the good lady, who, like all good ladies of that 
stamp, thought people of quality had airs, was thus lament- 
ing her ignorance of the new-comers, a general whisper of a 
similar import was already circulating round the room, “ Who 
are they?” and the universal answer was, “Can’t tell, — 
never saw them before ! ” 

Our strangers seemed by no means displeased with the 
evident and immediate impression they had made. They 
stood in the most conspicuous part of the room, enjoying 
among themselves a low conversation, frequently broken by 
fits of laughter, — tokens, we need not add, of their superemi- 
nently good breeding. The handsome figure of the youngest 
stranger, and the simple and seemingly unconscious grace of 
his attitudes were not, however, unworthy of the admiration 
he excited; and even his laughter, rude as it really was, dis- 
played so dazzling a set of teeth, and was accompanied by 
such brilliant eyes, that before he had been ten minutes in 
the room there was scarcely a young lady under thirty-nine 
not disposed to fall in love with him. 

Apparently heedless of the various remarks which reached 
their ears, our strangers, after they had from their station 
sufficiently surveyed the beauties of the ball, strolled arm-in- 
arm through the rooms. Having sauntered through the ball 
and card rooms, they passed the door that led to the entrance 
passage, and gazed, with other loiterers, upon the new-comers 
ascending the stairs. Here the two younger strangers renewed 
their whispered conversation, while the eldest, who was also 
the tallest one, carelessly leaning against the wall, employed 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


183 


himself for a few moments in thrusting his fingers through 
his hair. In finishing this occupation, the peculiar state of 
his ruffles forced itself upon the observation of our gentleman, 
who, after gazing for some moments on an envious rent in the 
right ruffle, muttered some indistinct words, like “ the cock of 
that confounded pistol, ” and then tucked up the mutilated 
ornament with a peculiarly nimble motion of the fingers of 
his left hand ; the next moment, diverted by a new care, the 
stranger applied his digital members to the arranging and 
caressing of a remarkably splendid brooch, set in the bosom 
of a shirt the rude texture of which formed a singular con- 
trast with the magnificence of the embellishment and the fine- 
ness of the one ruffle suffered by our modern Hyperion to 
make its appearance beneath his cinnamon-coloured coat- 
sleeve. These little personal arrangements completed, and 
a dazzling snuff-box released from the confinement of a side- 
pocket, tapped thrice, and lightened of two pinches of its 
titillating luxury, the stranger now, with the guardian eye of 
friendship, directed a searching glance to the dress of his 
friends. There all appeared meet for his strictest scrutiny, 
save, indeed, that the supercilious-looking stranger having 
just drawn forth his gloves, the lining of his coat-pockets 
which was rather soiled into the bargain — had not returned 
to its internal station; the tall stranger, seeing this little 
inelegance, kindly thrust three fingers with a sudden, and 
light dive into his friend’s pocket, and effectually repulsed 
the forwardness of the intrusive lining. The supercilious 
stranger no sooner felt the touch than he started back, and 
whispered to his officious companion, — 

“What! among friends, Ned! Fie now; curb the nature of 
thee for one night at least.” 

Before he of the flowing locks had time to answer, the 
master of the ceremonies, who had for the last three minutes 
been eying the strangers through his glass, stepped forward 
with a sliding bow; and the handsome gentleman, taking upon 
himself the superiority and precedence over his comrades, 
was the first to return the courtesy. He did this with so good 
a grace and so pleasing an expression of countenance that the 


184 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


censor of bows was charmed at once, and with a second and 
more profound salutation announced himself and his office. 

“You would like to dance probably, gentlemen?” he asked, 
glancing at each, but directing his words to the one who had 
prepossessed him. 

“You are very good,” said the comely stranger; “and, for 
my part, 1 shall be extremely indebted to you for the exercise 
of your powers in my behalf. Allow me to return with you to 
the ball-room, and I can there point out to you the objects of 
my especial admiration.” 

The master of the ceremonies bowed as before, and he and 
his new acquaintance strolled into the ball-room, followed by 
the two comrades of the latter. 

“ Have you been long in Bath, sir? ” inquired the monarch 
of the rooms. 

“No, indeed! we only arrived this evening.” 

“ From London? ” 

“No; we made a little tour across the country.” 

“Ah! very pleasant, this fine weather.” 

“Yes; especially in the evenings.” 

“Oho! romantic!” thought the man of balls, as he rejoined 
aloud, “ Why, the nights are agreeable, and the moon is par- 
ticularly favourable to us.” 

“Not always! ” quoth the stranger. 

“True, true, the night before last was dark; but, in general, 
surely the moon has been very bright.” 

The stranger was about to answer, but checked himself, 
and simply bowed his head as in assent. 

“ I wonder who they are ! ” thought the master of the cere- 
monies. “Pray, sir,” said he, in a low tone, “is that gentle- 
man, that tall gentleman, any way related to Lord ? I 

cannot but think I see a family likeness.” 

“Not in the least related to his lordship,” answered the 
stranger; “but he is of a family that have made a noise in 
the world ; though he, as well as my other friend, is merely a 
commoner ! ” laying a stress on the last word. 

“Nothing, sir, can be more respectable than a commoner of 
family,” returned the polite Mr. , with a bow. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


185 


“I agree with you, sir,” answered the stranger, with 
another. “But, heavens !” — and the stranger started; for 
at that moment his eye caught for the first time, at the far 
end of the room, the youthful and brilliant countenance of 
Lucy Brandon, — “do I see rightly, or is that Miss Brandon?” 

“ It is indeed that lovely young lady, ” said Mr. . “ I 

congratulate you on knowing one so admired. I suppose that 
you, being blessed with her acquaintance, do not need the 
formality of my introduction? ” 

“ U mph ! ” said the stranger, rather shortly and uncourte- 
ously. “No! Perhaps you had better present me! ” 

“By what name shall I have that honour, sir?” discreetly 
inquired the nomenclator. 

“Clifford! ” answered the stranger; “Captain Clifford! ” 

Upon this the prim master of the ceremonies, threading his 
path through the now fast-filling room, approached towards 
Lucy to obey Mr. Clifford’s request. Meanwhile that gentle- 
man, before he followed the steps of the tutelary spirit of the 
place, paused and said to his friends, in a tone careless yet 
not without command, “Hark ye, gentlemen; oblige me by 
being as civil and silent as ye are able; and don’t thrust your- 
selves upon me, as you are accustomed to do, whenever you 
see no opportunity of indulging me with that honour with the 
least show of propriety ! ” So saying, and waiting no reply, 
Mr. Clifford hastened after the master of the ceremonies. 

“Our friend grows mighty imperious!” said Long Ned, 
whom our readers have already recognized in the tall stranger. 

“’Tis the way with your rising geniuses,” answered the 
moralizing Augustus Tomlinson. “ Suppose we go to the card- 
room and get up a rubber! ” 

“Well thought of,” said Ned, yawning, — a thing he was 
very apt to do in society; “and I wish nothing worse to those 
who try our rubbers than that they may be well cleaned by 
them.” Upon this witticism the Colossus of Roads, glancing 
towards the glass, strutted off, arm-in-arm with his compan- 
ion, to the card-room. 

During this short conversation the re-introduction of Mr. 
Clifford (the stranger of the Rectory and deliverer of Dr. 


186 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Slopperton) to Lucy Brandon had been effected, and the hand 
of the heiress was already engaged, according to the custom of 
that time, for the two ensuing dances. 

It was about twenty minutes after the above presentation 
had taken place that Lord Mauleverer and William Brandon 
entered the rooms ; and the buzz created by the appearance of 
the noted peer and the distinguished lawyer had scarcely sub- 
sided, before the royal personage expected to grace the “ fes- 
tive scene” (as the newspapers say of a great room with 
plenty of miserable-looking people in it) arrived. The most 
attractive persons in Europe may be found among the royal 
family of England, and the great personage then at Bath, in 
consequence of certain political intrigues, wished, at that time 
especially, to make himself as popular as possible. Having 
gone the round of the old ladies, and assured them, as the 
“ Court Journal” assures the old ladies at this day, that they 
were “morning stars” and “swan-like wonders,” the prince 
espied Brandon, and immediately beckoned to him with a 
familiar gesture. The smooth but saturnine lawyer ap- 
proached the royal presence with the manner that peculiarly 
distinguished him, and which blended in no ungraceful mix- 
ture a species of stiffness that passed with the crowd for native 
independence, with a supple insinuation that was usually 
deemed the token of latent benevolence of heart. There was 
something, indeed, in Brandon’s address that always pleased 
the great; and they liked him the better because, though he 
stood on no idle political points, mere differences in the view 
taken of a hairbreadth, — such as a corn-law or a Catholic 
bill, alteration in the Church or a reform in parliament, — 
yet he invariably talked so like a man of honour (except when 
with Mauleverer) that his urbanity seemed attachment to 
individuals, and his concessions to power sacrifices of pri- 
vate opinion for the sake of obliging his friends. 

“I am very glad indeed,” said the royal personage, “to see 
Mr. Brandon looking so much better. Never was the crown 
in greater want of his services; and if rumour speak true, 
they will soon be required in another department of his 
profession.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


187 


Brandon bowed, and answered, — 

“ So please your royal highness, they will always be at the 
command of a king from whom I have experienced such kind- 
ness, in any capacity for which his Majesty may deem them 
fitting.” 

“It is true, then!” said his royal highness, significantly. 
“I congratulate you! The quiet dignity of the bench must 
seem to you a great change after a career so busy and restless.” 

“I fear I shall feel it so at first, your royal highness,” 
answered Brandon, “for I like even the toil of my profession; 
and at this moment, when I am in full practice, it more than 
ever — But” (checking himself at once) “his Majesty’s 
wishes, and my satisfaction in complying with them, are more 
than sufficient to remove any momentary regret I might other- 
wise have felt in quitting those toils which have now become 
to me a second nature.” 

“It is possible,” rejoined the prince, “that his Majesty 
took into consideration the delicate state of health which, 
in common with the whole public, I grieve to see the papers 
have attributed to one of the most distinguished ornaments of 
the bar.” 

“So please your royal highness,” answered Brandon, coolly, 
and with a smile which the most piercing eye could not have 
believed the mask to the agony then gnawing at his nerves, “ it 
is the interest of my rivals to exaggerate the little ailments of 
a weak constitution. I thank Providence that I am now en- 
tirely recovered; and at no time of my life have I been less 
unable to discharge — so far as my native and mental incapaci- 
ties will allow — the duties of any occupation, however ardu- 
ous. Nay, as the brute grows accustomed to the mill, so have 
I grown wedded to business ; and even the brief relaxation I 
have now allowed myself seems to me rather irksome than 
pleasurable.” 

“I rejoice to hear you speak thus,” answered his royal 
highness, warmly; “and I trust for many years, and,” added 
he, in a lower tone, “ in the highest chamber of the senate, that 
we may profit by your talents. The times are those in which 
many occasions occur that oblige all true friends of the Con- 


188 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


stitution to quit minor employment for that great constitu- 
tional one that concerns us all, the highest and the meanest; 
and” (the royal voice sank still lower) “I feel justified in 
assuring you that the office of chief -justice alone is not con- 
sidered by his Majesty as a sufficient reward for your generous 
sacrifice of present ambition to the difficulties of government.” 

Brandon’s proud heart swelled, and that moment the veriest 
pains of hell would scarcely have been felt. 

While the aspiring schemer was thus agreeably engaged, 
Mauleverer, sliding through the crowd with that grace which 
charmed every one, old and young, and addressing to all he 
knew some lively or affectionate remark, made his way to the 
dancers, among whom he had just caught a glimpse of Lucy. 
“I wonder,” he thought, “whom she is dancing with. I hope 
it is that ridiculous fellow, Mossop, who tells a good story 
against himself; or that handsome ass, Belmont, who looks at 
nis own legs, instead of seeming to have eyes for no one but 
his partner. Ah ! if Tarquin had but known women as well 
as I do, he would have had no reason to be rough with 
Lucretia. ’T is a thousand pities that experience comes, in 
women as in the world, just when it begins to be no longer 
of use to us ! ” 

As he made these moral reflections, Mauleverer gained the 
dancers, and beheld Lucy listening, with downcast eyes and 
cheeks that evidently blushed, to a young man whom Maul- 
everer acknowledged at once to be one of the best-looking fel- 
lows he had ever seen. The stranger’s countenance, despite 
an extreme darkness of complexion, was, to be sure, from the 
great regularity of the features, rather effeminate; but, on 
the other hand, his figure, though slender and graceful, 
betrayed to an experienced eye an extraordinary proportion 
of sinew and muscle; and even the dash of effeminacy in the 
countenance was accompanied by so manly and frank an air, 
and was so perfectly free from all coxcombry or self-conceit, 
that it did not in the least decrease the prepossessing effect of 
his appearance. An angry and bitter pang shot across that 
portion of Mauleverer’s frame which the earl thought fit, for 
want of another name, to call his heart. “How cursedly 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


189 


pleased she looks ! ” muttered he. “ By Heaven ! that stolen 
glance under the left eyelid, dropped as suddenly as it is 
raised; and he — ha! how firmly he holds that little hand! 
I think I see him paddle with it; and then the dog’s earnest, 
intent look, — and she all blushes, though she dare not look 
up to meet his gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh, the demure, 
modest, shamefaced hypocrite ! How silent she is ! She can 
prate enough to me ! I would give my promised garter if she 
would but talk to him. Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only sim- 
per, in God’s name, and I shall be happy. But that bashful, 
blushing silence, — it is insupportable. Thank Heaven, the 
dance is over! Thank Heaven, again! I have not felt such 
pains since the last nightmare I had after dining with her 
father! ” 

With a face all smiles, but with a mien in which more 
dignity than he ordinarily assumed was worn, Mauleverer 
now moved towards Lucy, who was leaning on her partner’s 
arm. The earl, who had ample tact where his consummate 
selfishness did not warp it, knew well how to act the lover, 
without running ridiculously into the folly of seeming to play 
the hoary dangler. He sought rather to be lively than senti- 
mental ; and beneath the wit to conceal the suitor. 

Having paid, then, with a careless gallantry his first com- 
pliments, he entered into so animated a conversation, inter- 
spersed with so many naive yet palpably just observations on 
the characters present, that perhaps he had never appeared to 
more brilliant advantage. At length, as the music was about 
to recommence, Mauleverer, with a careless glance at Lucy’s 
partner, said, “Will Miss Brandon now allow me the agree- 
able duty of conducting her to her father?” 

“I believe,” answered Lucy, and her voice suddenly became 
timid, “that, according to the laws of the rooms, I am engaged 
to this gentleman for another dance.” 

Clifford, in an assured and easy tone, replied in assent. 

As he spoke, Mauleverer honoured him with a more accurate 
survey than he had hitherto bestowed on him ; and whether or 
not there was any expression of contempt or superciliousness 
in the survey, it was sufficient to call up the indignant blood 


190 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


to Clifford’s cheek. Returning the look with interest, he said 
to Lucy, “ I believe, Miss Brandon, that the dance is about to 
begin ; ” and Lucy, obeying the hint, left the aristocratic 
Mauleverer to his own meditations. 

At that moment the master of the ceremonies came bowing 
by, half afraid to address so great a person as Mauleverer, 
but willing to show his respect by the profoundness of his 
salutation. 

“Aha! my dear Mr. ! ” said the earl, holding out both 

his hands to the Lycurgus of the rooms; “how are you? Pray 
can you inform me who that young — man is, now dancing 
with Miss Brandon? ” 

“It is — let me see — oh! it is a Captain Clifford, my lord! 
a very fine young man, my lord ! Has your lordship never met 
him?” 

“Never! Who is he? One under your more especial pat- 
ronage?” said the earl, smiling. 

“Nay, indeed!” answered the master of the ceremonies, 
with a simper of gratification; “I scarcely know who he is 
yet; the captain only made his appearance here to-night for 
the first time. He came with two other gentlemen, — ah! 
there they are! ” and he pointed the earl’s scrutinizing atten- 
tion to the elegant forms of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson and Mr. 
Ned Pepper, just emerging from the card-rooms. The swagger 
of the latter gentleman was so peculiarly important that Maul- 
everer, angry as he was, could scarcely help laughing. The 
master of the ceremonies noted the earl’s countenance, and 
remarked that “ that fine-looking man seemed disposed to give 
himself airs.” 

“Judging from the gentleman’s appearance,” said the earl, 
dryly (Ned’s face, to say truth, did betoken his affection for 
the bottle), “ I should imagine that he was much more accus- 
tomed to give himself thorough draughts / ” 

“ Ah ! ” renewed the arbiter elegantiarum , who had not heard 
Mauleverer’ s observation, which was uttered in a very low 
voice, — “ ah ! they seem real dashers ! ” 

“ Dashers ! ” repeated Mauleverer ; “ true, haberdashers ! ” 

Long Ned now, having in the way of his profession 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


191 


acquitted himself tolerably well at the card-table, thought 
he had purchased the right to parade himself through the 
rooms, and show the ladies what stuff a Pepper could be 
made of. 

Leaning with his left hand on Tomlinson’s arm, and 
employing the right in fanning himself furiously with his 
huge chapeau bras , the lengthy adventurer stalked slowly 
along, now setting out one leg jauntily, now the other, and 
ogling “the ladies” with a kind of Irish look, — namely, a 
look between a wink and a stare. 

Released from the presence of Clifford, who kept a certain 
check on his companions, the apparition of Red became glar- 
ingly conspicuous; and wherever he passed, a universal 
whisper succeeded. 

“Who can he be?” said the widow Matemore. “’Tis a 
droll creature ; but what a head of hair ! ” 

“For my part,” answered the spinster Sneerall, “I think 
he is a linendraper in disguise; for I heard him talk to his 
companion of ‘ tape.’ ” 

“Well, well,” thought Mauleverer, “it would be but kind 
to seek out Brandon, and hint to him in what company his 
niece seems to have fallen!” and so thinking, he glided to 
the corner where, with a gray-headed old politician, the astute 
lawyer was conning the affairs of Europe. 

In the interim the second dance had ended, and Clifford was 
conducting Lucy to her seat, each charmed with the other, 
when he found himself abruptly tapped on the back, and turn- 
ing round in alarm, — for such taps were not unfamiliar to 
him, — he saw the cool countenance of Long Ned, with one 
finger sagaciously laid beside the nose. 

“How now?” said Clifford, between his ground teeth; “did 
I not tell thee to put that huge bulk of thine as far from me 
as possible?” 

“Humph! ” grunted Ned; “if these are my thanks, I may as 
well keep my kindness to myself; but know you, my kid, that 
Lawyer Brandon is here, peering through the crowd at this 
very moment, in order to catch a glimpse of that woman’s 
face of thine.” 


192 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“ Ha ! ” answered Clifford, in a very quick tone ; “ begone, 
then! I will meet you without the rooms immediately.” 

Clifford now turned to his partner, and bowing very low, 
in reality to hide his face from those sharp eyes which had 
once seen it in the court of Justice Burnflat, said: “I trust, 
madam, I shall have the honour to meet you again. Is it, if 
I may be allowed to ask, with your celebrated uncle that you 
are staying, or — ” 

“With my father,” answered Lucy, concluding the sentence 
Clifford had left unfinished; “but my uncle has been with us, 
though I fear he leaves us to-morrow.” 

Clifford’s eyes sparkled; he made no answer, but bowing 
again, receded into the crowd and disappeared. Several 
times that night did the brightest eyes in Somersetshire rove 
anxiously round the rooms in search of our hero; but he was 
seen no more. 

It was on the stairs that Clifford encountered his comrades; 
taking an arm of each, he gained the door without any adven- 
ture worth noting, save that, being kept back by the crowd 
for a few moments, the moralizing Augustus Tomlinson, who 
honoured the moderate Whigs by enrolling himself among 
their number, took up, pour passer le temps , a tall gold-headed 
cane, and weighing it across his finger with a musing air, said, 
“ Alas ! among our supporters we often meet heads as heavy, 
but of what a different metal ! ” The crowd now permitting, 
Augustus was walking away with his companions, and, in 
that absence of mind characteristic of philosophers, uncon- 
sciously bearing with him the gold-headed object of his reflec- 
tion, when a stately footman, stepping up to him, said, “Sir, 
my cane ! ” 

“Cane, fellow!” said Tomlinson. “Ah, I am so absent! 
Here is thy cane. Only think of my carrying off the man’s 
cane, Ned! Ha, ha!” 

“ Absent indeed ! ” grunted a knowing chairman, watching 
the receding figures of the three gentlemen; “body o’ me! 
but it was the cane that was about to be absent ! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


193 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Whackum. My dear rogues, dear boys, Bluster and Dingboy ! you are 
the bravest fellows that ever scoured yet ! — Shadwell : Scourers. 

Cato, the Thessalian, was wont to say that some things may be done 
unjustly, that many things may be done justly. — Lord Bacon (being a 
justification of every rascality). 

Although our three worthies had taken unto themselves a 
splendid lodging in Milsom Street, which, to please Ned, was 
over a hairdresser’s shop, yet, instead of returning thither, 
or repairing to such taverns as might seem best befitting their 
fashion and garb, they struck at once from the gay parts of 
the town, and tarried not till they reached a mean-looking 
alehouse in a remote suburb. 

The door was opened to them by an elderly lady; and 
Clifford, stalking before his companions into an apartment 
at the back of the house, asked if the other gentlemen were 
come yet. 

“No,” returned the dame. “Old Mr. Bags came in about 
ten minutes ago; but hearing more work might be done, he 
went out again.” 

“Bring the lush and the pipes, old rdone!” cried Ned, 
throwing himself on a bench; “we ar* never at a loss for 
company ! ” 

“You, indeed, never can be, who are always inseparably 
connected with the object of your admiration,” said Tomlin* 
son, dryly, and taking up an old newspaper. Ned, who, 
though choleric, was a capital fellow, and could bear a joke 
on himself, smiled, and drawing forth a little pair of scissors, 
began trimming his nails. 

“Curse me,” said he, after a momentary silence, “if this is 
not a devilish deal pleasanter than playing the fine gentleman 
in that great room, with a rose in one’s button-hole! What 
say you, Master Lovett?” 


13 


194 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Clifford (as henceforth, despite his other aliases, we shall 
denominate our hero), who had thrown himself at full length 
on a bench at the far end of the room, and who seemed plunged 
into a sullen revery, now looked up for a moment, and then, 
turning round and presenting the dorsal part of his body to 
Long Ned, muttered, “Pish!” 

“Harkye, Master Lovett!” said Long Ned, colouring. “I 
don’t know what has come over you of late; but I would have 
you to learn that gentlemen are entitled to courtesy and polite 
behaviour; and so, d’ye see, if you ride your high horse upon 
me, splice my extremities if I won’t have satisfaction! ” 
“Hist, man! be quiet,” said Tomlinson, philosophically, 
snuffing the candles, — 

“ ‘ For companions to quarrel, 

Is extremely immoral.’ 

Don’t you see that the captain is in a revery? What good 
man ever loves to be interrupted in his meditations? Even 
Alfred the Great could not bear it ! Perhaps at this moment, 
with the true anxiety of a worthy chief, the captain is design- 
ing something for our welfare ! ” 

“Captain indeed! ” muttered Long Ned, darting a wrathful 
look at Clifford, who had not deigned to pay any attention to 
Mr. Pepper’s threat; “for my part I cannot conceive what 
was the matter with us when we chose this green slip of the 
gallows-tree for our captain of the district. To be sure, he 
did very well at first, and that robbery of the old lord was not 
ill-planned ; but lately — ” 

“Nay, nay,” quoth Augustus, interrupting the gigantic 
grumbler; “the nature of man is prone to discontent. Allow 
that our present design of setting up the gay Lothario, and 
trying our chances at Bath for an heiress, is owing as much to 
Lovett’s promptitude as to our invention.” 

“And what good will come of it?” returned Ned, as he 
lighted his pipe; “answer me that. Was I not dressed as 
fine as a lord, and did not I walk three times up and down 
that great room without being a jot the better for it? ” 

“Ah! but you know not how many secret conquests you 
may have made. You cannot win a prize by looking upon it.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 195 

“ Humph !” grunted Ned, applying himself discontentedly 
to the young existence of his pipe. 

“As for the captain’s partner,” renewed Tomlinson, who 
maliciously delighted in exciting the jealousy of the hand- 
some “tax-collector,” — for that was the designation by which 
Augustus thought proper to style himself and companions, — 
“ I will turn Tory if she be not already half in love with him ; 
and did you hear the old gentleman who cut into our rubber 
say what a fine fortune she had? Faith, Ned, it is lucky for 
us two that we all agreed to go shares in our marriage specu- 
lations ; I fancy the worthy captain will think it a bad bar- 
gain for himself.” 

“I am not so sure of that, Mr. Tomlinson,” said Long Ned, 
sourly eying his comrade. “ Some women may be caught by a 
smooth skin and a showy manner; but real masculine beauty, 
— eyes, colour, and hair, — Mr. Tomlinson, must ultimately 
make its way; so hand me the brandy, and cease your jaw.” 

“Well, well,” said Tomlinson, “I’ll give you a toast, — 
‘ The prettiest girl in England,’ and that’s Miss Brandon!” 

“You shall give no such toast, sir!” said Clifford, starting 
from the bench. “What the devil is Miss Brandon to you? 
And now, Ned,” seeing that the tall hero looked on him with 
an unfavourable aspect, “here’s my hand; forgive me if I 
was uncivil. Tomlinson will tell you, in a maxim; men are 
changeable. Here ’s to your health ; and it shall not be my 
fault, gentlemen, if we have not a merry evening! ” 

This speech, short as it was, met with great applause from 
the two friends; and Clifford, as president, stationed himself 
in a huge chair at the head of the table. Scarcely had he 
assumed this dignity, before the door opened, and half-a-dozen 
of the gentlemen confederates trooped somewhat noisily into 
the apartment. 

“Softly, softly, messieurs,” said the president, recovering 
all his constitutional gayety, yet blending it with a certain 
negligent command, — “ respect for the chair, if you please! 
’T is the way with all assemblies where the public purse is a 
matter of deferential interest ! ” 

“Hear him! ” cried Tomlinson. 


196 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“What, my old friend Bags!” said the president; “you 
have not come empty-handed, I will swear; your honest face 
is like the table of contents to the good things in your 
pockets ! ” 

“Ah, Captain Clifford,” said the veteran, groaning, and 
shaking his reverend head, “ I have seen the day when there 
was not a lad in England forked so largely, so comprehen- 
sively -like, as I did. But, as King Lear says at Common 
Garden, ‘ I be ’s old now ! 5 ” 

“ But your zeal is as youthful as ever, my fine fellow, ” said 
the captain, soothingly; “and if you do not clean out the 
public as thoroughly as heretofore, it is not the fault of your 
inclinations.” 

“No, that it is not! ” cried the “tax-collectors ” unanimously. 

“And if ever a pocket is to be picked neatly, quietly, and 
effectually,” added the complimentary Clifford, “ I do not know 
to this day, throughout the three kingdoms, a neater, quieter, 
and more effective set of fingers than Old Bags’s! ” 

The veteran bowed disclaimingly, and took his seat among 
the heartfelt good wishes of the whole assemblage. 

“And now, gentlemen,” said Clifford, as soon as the 
revellers had provided themselves with their wonted luxu- 
ries, potatory and fumous, “let us hear your adventures, and 
rejoice our eyes with their produce. The gallant Attie shall 
begin ; but first, a toast, — ‘ May those who leap from a hedge 
never leap from a tree ! ’ ” 

This toast being drunk with enthusiastic applause, Fighting 
Attie began the recital of his little history. 

“You sees, Captain,” said he, putting himself in a martial 
position, and looking Clifford full in the face, “that I ’m not 
addicted to much blarney. Little cry and much wool is my 
motto. At ten o’clock a.m. saw the enemy — in the shape of 
a Doctor of Divinity. ‘ Blow me, ’ says I to Old Bags, ‘ but 
T ’ll do his reverence ! ’ ‘ Blow me, ’ says Old Bags, 1 but 

you sha’ n’t, — you’ll have us scragged if you touches the 
Church.’ 4 My grandmother! ’ says I. Bags tells the pals, — 
all in a fuss about it, — what care I? I puts on a decent 
dress, and goes to the doctor as a decayed soldier wot supplies 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


197 


the shops in the turning line. His reverence — a fat jolly dog 
as ever you see — was at dinner over a fine roast pig; so I 
tells him I have some bargains at home for him. Splice me, 
if the doctor did not think he had got a prize; so he puts on 
his boots, and he comes with me to my house. But when I 
gets him into a lane, out come my pops. 4 Give up, Doctor , 9 
says I ; ‘ others must share the goods of the Church now . 9 
You has no idea what a row he made; but I did the thing, 
and there ’s an end on’t.” 

“ Bravo, Attie! ” cried Clifford; and the word echoed round 
the board. Attie put a purse on the table, and the next gen- 
tleman was called to confession. 

“It skills not, boots not,” gentlest of readers, to record 
each of the narratives that now followed one another. Old 
Bags, in especial, preserved his well-earned reputation by 
emptying six pockets, which had been filled with every possi- 
ble description of petty valuables. Peasant and prince ap- 
peared alike to have come under his hands ; and perhaps the 
good old man had done in the town more towards effecting 
an equality of goods among different ranks than all the Re- 
formers, from Cornwall to Carlisle. Yet so keen was his 
appetite for the sport that the veteran appropriator absolutely 
burst into tears at not having “ forked more.” 

“I love a warm-hearted enthusiasm,” cried Clifford, hand- 
ling the movables, while he gazed lovingly on the ancient 
purloiner. “May new cases never teach us to forget Old 
Bags!” 

As soon as this “ sentiment ” had been duly drunk, and Mr. 
Bagshot had dried his tears and applied himself to his favour- 
ite drink, — which, by the way, was “ blue ruin, ” — the work 
of division took place. The discretion and impartiality of the 
captain in this arduous part of his duty attracted universal 
admiration; and each gentleman having carefully pouched 
his share, the youthful president hemmed thrice, and the 
society became aware of a purposed speech. 

“ Gentlemen ! ” began Clifford, — and his main supporter, 
the sapient Augustus, shouted out, “ Hear ! ” — “ gentlemen; 
you all know that when some months ago you were pleased, 


198 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


partly at the instigation of Gentleman George — God bless 
him ! — partly from the exaggerated good opinion expressed of 
me by my friends, to elect me to the high honour of the com- 
mand of this district, I myself was by no means ambitious to 
assume that rank, which I knew well was far beyond my merits, 
and that responsibility which I knew with equal certainty 
was too weighty for my powers. Your voices, however, over- 
ruled my own; and as Mr. Muddlepud, the great metaphysi- 
cian, in that excellent paper, ‘ The Asinseum, ’ was wont to 
observe, ‘ the susceptibilities, innate, extensible, incompre- 
hensible, and eternal, ’ existing in my bosom, were infinitely 
more powerful than the shallow suggestions of reason, — that 
ridiculous thing which all wise men and judicious Asinseans 
sedulously stifle.” 

“Plague take the man! what is he talking about?” said 
Long Ned, who we have seen was of an envious temper, in a 
whisper to Old Bags. Old Bags shook his head. 

“In a word, gentlemen,” renewed Clifford, “your kindness 
overpowered me; and despite my cooler inclinations, I ac- 
cepted your flattering proposal. Since then I have endeav- 
oured, so far as I have been able, to advance your interests ; 
I have kept a vigilant eye upon all my neighbours ; I have, 
from county to county, established numerous correspondents; 
and our exertions have been carried on with a promptitude 
that has ensured success. 

“Gentlemen, I do not wish to boast; but on these nights 
of periodical meetings, when every quarter brings us to go 
halves, — when we meet in private to discuss the affairs of 
the public, show our earnings as it were in privy council, and 
divide them amicably as it were in the Cabinet [“ Hear ! hear ! ” 
from Mr. Tomlinson], — it is customary for your captain for 
the time being to remind you of his services, engage your 
pardon for his deficiencies, and your good wishes for his 
future exertions. Gentlemen, has it ever been said of Paul 
Lovett that he heard of a prize and forgot to tell you of his 
news? [“If ever! never !” loud cheering.] Has it ever been 
said of him that he sent others to seize the booty, and stayed 
at home to think how it should be spent? [No ! no ! ” repeated 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


199 


cheers.] Has it ever been said of him that he took less share 
than his due of your danger, and more of your guineas? 
[Cries in the negative, accompanied with vehement applause.] 
Gentlemen, I thank you for these flattering and audible testi- 
monials in my favour ; but the points on which I have dwelt, 
however necessary to my honour, would prove but little for 
my merits ; they might be worthy notice in your comrade, you 
demand more subtle duties in your chief. Gentlemen, has it 
ever been said of Paul Lovett that he sent out brave men on 
forlorn hopes; that he hazarded your own heads by rash 
attempts in acquiring pictures of King George’s; that zeal, 
in short, was greater in him than caution, or that his love of 
a quid 1 ever made him neglectful of your just aversion to a 
quod ? 2 [Unanimous cheering.] 

“ Gentlemen, since I have had the honour to preside over 
your welfare, Fortune, which favours the bold, has not been 
unmerciful to you ! But three of our companions have been 
missed from our peaceful festivities. One, gentlemen, I my- 
self expelled from our corps for ungentlemanlike practices ; he 
picked pockets of fogies , 3 — it was a vulgar employment. Some 
of you, gentlemen, have done the same for amusement; Jack 
Littlefork did it for occupation. I expostulated with him in 
public and in private ; Mr. Pepper cut his society ; Mr. Tomlin- 
son read him an essay on Real Greatness of Soul : all was in 
vain. He was pumped by the mob for the theft of a bird’s-eye 
wipe. The fault I had borne with, — the detection was unpar- 
donable; I expelled him. Who’s here so base as would be a 
f ogle-liunter? If any, speak; for him have I offended! Who ’s 
here so rude as would not be a gentleman? If any, speak; for 
him have I offended ! I pause for a reply ! What, none ! then 
none have I offended. [Loud cheers.] Gentlemen, I may truly 
add, that I have done no more to Jack Littlefork than you 
should do to Paul Lovett ! The next vacancy in our ranks was 
occasioned by the loss of Patrick Blunderbull. You know, 
gentlemen, the vehement exertions that I made to save that 
misguided creature, whom I had made exertions no less earn- 
est to instruct. But he chose to swindle under the name of 
l A guinea. 2 A prison. 8 Handkerchiefs. 


200 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


the ‘ Honourable Captain Smico ; ’ the Peerage gave him the 
lie at once; his case was one of aggravation, and he was so 
remarkably ugly that he ‘ created no interest. ’ He left us for 
a foreign exile; and if as a man I lament him, I confess to 
you, gentlemen, as a ‘ tax-collector ’ I am easily consoled. 

“Our third loss must be fresh in your memory. Peter 
Popwell, as bold a fellow as ever breathed, is no more ! [A 
movement in the assembly.] Peace be with him! He died 
on the field of battle ; shot dead by a Scotch Colonel, whom 
poor Popwell thought to rob of nothing with an empty pistol. 
His memory, gentlemen, — in solemn silence ! 

“These make the catalogue of our losses,” resumed the 
youthful chief, so soon as the “ red cup had crowned the mem- 
ory ” of Peter Popwell ; “ I am proud, even in sorrow, to 
think that the blame of those losses rests not with me. And 
now, friends and followers! Gentlemen of the Road, the 
Street, the Theatre, and the Shop! Prigs, Tobymen, and 
Squires of the Cross! according to the laws of our Society ,. 
I resign into your hands that power which for two quarterly 
terms you have confided to mine, ready to sink into your ranks 
as a comrade, nor unwilling to renounce the painful honour I 
have borne, — borne with much infirmity, it is true, but at 
least with a sincere desire to serve that cause with which you 
have intrusted me.” 

So saying, the captain descended from his chair amidst the 
most uproarious applause; and as soon as the first burst had 
partially subsided, Augustus Tomlinson rising, with one hand 
in his breeches’ pocket and the other stretched out, said, — 

“ Gentlemen, I move that Paul Lovett be again chosen as 
our captain for the ensuing term of three months. [Deafen- 
ing cheers.] Much might I say about his surpassing merits; 
but why dwell upon that which is obvious? Life is short! 
Why should speeches be long? Our lives, perhaps, are 
shorter than the lives of other men; why should not our 
harangues be of a suitable brevity? Gentlemen, I shall say 
but one word in favour of my excellent friend, — of mine, say 
I? ay, of mine, of yours. He is a friend to all of us! A 
prime minister is not more useful to his followers and more 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


201 


burdensome to the public than I am proud to say is — Paul 
Lovett. [Loud plaudits.] What I shall urge in his favour is 
simply this : the man whom opposite parties unite in praising 
must have supereminent merit. Of all your companions, gen- 
tlemen, Paul Lovett is the only man who to that merit can 
advance a claim. [Applause.] You all know, gentlemen, 
that our body has long been divided into two factions, — 
each jealous of the other, each desirous of ascendancy, and 
each emulous which shall put the greatest number of fingers 
into the public pie. In the language of the vulgar, the one 
faction would be called ‘ swindlers/ and the other ‘ highway- 
men.’ I, gentlemen, who am fond of finding new names for 
things and for persons, and am a bit of a politician, call the 
one Whigs, and the other Tories. [Clamorous cheering.] Of 
the former body I am esteemed no uninflueiitial member; of 
the latter faction Mr. Bags is justly considered the most shin- 
ing ornament. Mr. Attie and Mr. Edward Pepper can scarcely 
be said to belong entirely to either; they unite the good qual- 
ities of both. ‘ British compounds ’ some term them; I term 
them Liberal Aristocrats! [Cheers.] I now call upon you 
all, Whig, or Swindler, Tory, or Highwayman, ‘ British Com- 
pounds,’ or Liberal Aristocrats, — I call upon you all to name 
me one man whom you will all agree to elect.” 

All, — “ Lovett forever ! ” 

“Gentlemen,” continued the sagacious Augustus, “that 
shout is sufficient; without another word, I propose, as your 
captain, Mr. Paul Lovett.” 

“And I seconds the motion! ” said old Mr. Bags. 

Our hero, being now by the unanimous applause of his 
confederates restored to the chair of office, returned thanks 
in a neat speech; and Scarlet Jem declared, with great sol- 
emnity, that it did equal honour to his head and heart. 

The thunders of eloquence being hushed, flashes of light- 
ning, or, as the vulgar say, glasses of gin, gleamed about. 
Good old Mr. Bags stuck, however, to his blue ruin, and 
Attie to the bottle of bingo ; some, among whom were Clifford 
and the wise Augustus, called for wine; and Clifford, who 
exerted himself to the utmost in supporting the gay duties 


202 PAUL CLIFFORD. 

of his station, took care that the song should vary the pleas- 
ures of the bowl. Of the songs we have only beeii enabled to 
preserve two. The first is by Long Ned; and though we con- 
fess we can see but little in it, yet (perhaps from some 
familiar allusion or other with which we are necessarily 
unacquainted) it produced a prodigious sensation. It ran 
thus : — 

THE ROGUE’S RECIPE. 

Your honest fool a rogue to make, 

As great as can be seen, sir, — 

Two hackneyed rogues you first must take, 

Then place your fool between, sir. 

Virtue ’s a dunghill cock, ashamed 
Of self when paired with game ones ; 

And wildest elephants are tamed 
If stuck betwixt two tame ones. 

The other effusion with which we have the honour to favour 
our readers is a very amusing duet which took place between 
Fighting Attie and a tall thin robber, who was a dangerous 
fellow in a mob, and was therefore called Mobbing Francis; 
it was commenced by the latter : — 

MOBBING FRANCIS : 

The best of all robbers as ever I knowed 

Is the bold Fighting Attie, the pride of the road ! — 

Fighting Attie, my hero, I saw you to-day 
A purse full of yellow boys seize; 

And as, just at present, / ’m low in the lay, 

I ’ll borrow a quid, if you please. 

Oh ! bold Fighting Attie, the knowing, the natty, 

By us all it must sure be confest, 

Though your shoppers and snobbers are pretty good robbers, 

A soldier is always the best. 

FIGHTING ATTIE : 

Stubble your whids, 1 
You wants to trick I. 

Lend you my quids ? 

Not one, by Dickey. 


1 Hold your tongue. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


203 


MOBBING FRANCIS: 

Oh, what a beast is a niggardly ruffler, 

Nabbing, grabbing all for himself ! 

Hang it, old fellow, I ’ll hit you a muffler, 

Since you won’t give me a pinch of the pelf. 

You has not a heart for the general distress, 

You cares not a mag if our party should fall, 

And if Scarlet Jem were not good at a press, 

By Goles, it would soon be all up with us all ! 

Oh, Scarlet Jem, he is trusty and trim, 

Like his wig to his poll, sticks his conscience to him ; 

But I vows I despises the fellow who prizes 
More his own ends than the popular stock, sir ; 

And the soldier as bones for himself and his crones. 

Should be boned like a traitor himself at tlafe block, sir. 

The severe response of Mobbing Francis did not in the least 
ruffle the constitutional calmness of Fighting Attie; but the 
wary Clifford, seeing that Francis had lost his temper, and 
watchful over the least sign of disturbance among the com- 
pany, instantly called for another song, and Mobbing Francis 
sullenly knocked down Old Bags. 

The night was far gone, and so were the wits of the honest 
tax-gatherers, when the president commanded silence, and 
the convivialists knew that their chief was about to issue 
forth the orders for the ensuing term. Nothing could be 
better timed than such directions, — during merriment and 
before oblivion. 

“Gentlemen,” said the captain, “I will now, with your 
leave, impart to you all the plans I have formed for each. 
You, Attie, shall repair to London: be the Windsor road and 
the purlieus of Pimlico your especial care. Look you, my 
hero, to these letters ; they will apprise you of much work. I 
need not caution you to silence. Like the oyster, you never 
open your mouth but for something. Honest Old Bags, a 
rich grazier will be in Smithfield on Thursday; his name is 
Hodges, and he will have somewhat like a thousand pounds 
in his pouch. He is green, fresh, and avaricious; offer to 
assist him in defrauding his neighbours in a bargain, and 


204 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


cease not till thou hast done that with him which he wished 
to do to others. Be, excellent old man, like the frog-fish, 
which fishes for other fishes with two horns that resemble 
baits; the prey dart at the herns, and are down the throat in 
an instant! — For thee, dearest Jem, these letters announce a 
prize: fat is Parson Pliant; full is his purse; and he rides 
from Henley to Oxford on Friday, ■ — I need say no more ! As 
for the rest of you, gentlemen, on this paper you will see your 
destinations fixed. I warrant you, ye will find enough work 
till we meet again this day three months. Myself, Augustus 
Tomlinson, and Ned Pepper remain in Bath; we have busi- 
ness in hand, gentlemen, of paramount importance; should 
you by accident meet us, never acknowledge us, — we are 
incog. ; striking at high game, and putting on falcon’s 
plumes to do it in character, — you understand; but this 
accident can scarcely occur, for none of you will remain at 
Bath; by to-morrow night, may the road receive you. And 
now, gentlemen, speed the glass, and I ’ll give you a sentiment 
by way of a spur to it, — 

“ ‘ Much sweeter than honey 
Is other men’s money ! ’ ” 

Our hero’s maxim was received with all the enthusiasm 
which agreeable truisms usually create. And old Mr. Bags 
rose to address the chair ; unhappily for the edification of the 
audience, the veteran’s foot slipped before he had proceeded 
further than “Mr. President; ” he fell to the earth with a sort 
of reel, — 

“ Like shooting stars he fell to rise no more ! ” 

His body became a capital footstool for the luxurious Pepper. 
Now Augustus Tomlinson and Clifford, exchanging looks, 
took every possible pains to promote the hilarity of the even- 
ing; and before the third hour of morning had sounded, they 
had the satisfaction of witnessing the effects of their benevo- 
lent labours in the prostrate forms of all their companions. 
Long Ned, naturally more capacious than the rest, succumbed 
the last. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 205 

“ As leaves of trees,” said the chairman, waving his hand, — 

“ ‘ As leaves of trees the race of man is found, 

Now fresh with dew, now withering on the ground.’ ” 

“Well said, my Hector of Highways;” cried Tomlinson; 
and then helping himself to the wine, while he employed his 
legs in removing the supine forms of Scarlet Jem and Long 
Ned, he continued the Homeric quotation, with a pompous 
and self-gratulatory tone, — 

“ ‘ So flourish these when those have passed away ! ’ ” 

“We managed to get rid of our friends,” began Clifford — 

“Like Whigs in place,” interrupted the politician. 

“ Right, Tomlinson, thanks to the milde^ properties of our 
drink, and perchance to the stronger qualities of our heads ; 
and now tell me, my friend, what think you of our chance of 
success? Shall we catch an heiress or not? ” 

“Why, really,” said Tomlinson, “women are like those 
calculations in arithmetic, which one can never bring to an 
exact account; for my part, I shall stuff my calves, and look 
out for a widow. You, my good fellow, seem to stand a fair 
chance with Miss — ” 

“ Oh, name her not! ” cried Clifford, colouring, even through 
the flush which wine had spread over his countenance. “ Ours 
are not the lips by which her name should be breathed; and, 
faith, when I think of her, I do it anonymously.” 

“What, have you ever thought of her before this evening?” 

“Yes, for months,” answered Clifford. “You remember 
some time ago, when we formed the plan for robbing Lord 
Mauleverer, how, rather for frolic than profit, you robbed Dr. 
Slopperton, of Warlock, while 1 compassionately walked home 
with the old gentleman. Well, at the parson’s house I met 
Miss Brandon — mind, if I speak of her by name, you must not; 
and, by Heaven ! — But I won’t swear. I accompanied her 
home. You know, before morning we robbed Lord Maul- 
everer; the affair made a noise, and I feared to endanger you 
all if I appeared in the vicinity of the robbery. Since then, 
business diverted my thoughts ; we formed the plan of trying 


206 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


a matrimonial speculation at Bath. I came hither, — guess 
my surprise at seeing her — ” 

“And your delight,” added Tomlinson, “at hearing she is 
as rich as she is pretty.” 

“No! ” answered Clifford, quickly; “that thought gives me 
no pleasure. You stare. I will try and explain. You know, 
dear Tomlinson, I ’m not much of a canter, and yet my heart 
shrinks when I look on that innocent face, and hear that soft 
happy voice, and think that my love to her can be only ruin 
and disgrace; nay, that my very address is contamination, 
and my very glance towards her an insult.” 

“Heyday!” quoth Tomlinson; “have you been under mj r 
instructions, and learned the true value of words, and can 
you have any scruples left on so easy a point of conscience? 
True, you may call your representing yourself to her as an 
unprofessional gentleman, and so winning her affections, 
deceit; but why call it deceit when a genius for intrigue is 
so much neater a phrase? In like manner, by marrying the 
young lady, if you say you have ruined her , you justly deserve 
to be annihilated; but why not say you have saved yourself \ 
and then, my dear fellow, you will have done the most justi- 
fiable thing in the world.” 

“Pish, man!” said Clifford, peevishly; “none of thy soph- 
isms and sneers ! ” 

“ By the soul of Sir Edward Coke, I am serious ! But look 
you, my friend! this is not a matter where it is convenient to 
have a tender-footed conscience. You see these fellows on 
the ground, all d — d clever, and so forth ; but you and I are 
of a different order. I have had a classical education, seen 
the world, and mixed in decent society; you, too, had not 
been long a member of our club before you distinguished 
yourself above us all. Fortune smiled on your youthful 
audacity. You grew particular in horses and dress, fre- 
quented public haunts, and being a deuced good-looking 
fellow, with an inborn air of gentility and some sort of 
education, you became sufficiently well received to acquire in 
a short time the manner and tone of a — what shall I say? — 
a gentleman, and the taste to like suitable associates. This 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


207 


is my case too ! Despite our labours for tbe public weal, the 
ungrateful dogs see that we are above them ; a single envious 
breast is sufficient to give us to the hangman. We have 
agreed that we are in danger; we have agreed to make an 
honourable retreat; we cannot do so without money. You 
know the vulgar distich among our set. Nothing can be 
truer, — 

“ ‘ Hanging is ’nation 

More nice than starvation ! ’ 

You will not carry off some of the common stock, though I 
think you justly might, considering how much you have put 
into it. What, then, shall we do? Work we cannot, beg we 
will not; and, between you and me, we are cursedly extrava- 
gant! What remains but marriage?” 

“It is true,” said Clifford, with a half sigh. 

“ You may well sigh, my good fellow. Marriage is a lack- 
adaisical proceeding at best; but there is no resource. And 
now, when you have got a liking to a young lady who is as 
rich as a she-Croesus, and so gilded the pill as bright as a lord 
mayor’s coach, what the devil have you to do with scruples?” 

Clifford made no answer, and there was a long pause ; per- 
haps he would not have spoken so frankly as he had done, if 
the wine had not opened his heart. 

“How proud,” renewed Tomlinson, “the good old matron 
at Thames Court would be if you married a lady! You have 
not seen her lately?” 

“Not for years,” answered our hero. “Poor old soul! I 
believe that she is well in health, and I take care that she 
should not be poor in pocket.” 

“ But why not visit her? Perhaps, like all great men, espe- 
cially of a liberal turn of mind, you are ashamed of old 
friends, eh?” 

“My good fellow, is that like me? Why, you know the 
beaux of our set look askant on me for not keeping up my 
dignity, robbing only in company with well-dressed gentle- 
men, and swindling under the name of a lord’s nephew. No, 
my reasons are these: first, you must know, that the old dame 
had set her heart on my turning out an honest man.” 


208 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“And so you have,” interrupted Augustus, — “honest to 
your party; what more would you have from either prig or 
politician?’’ 

“I believe,” continued Clifford, not heeding the interrup- 
tion, “that my poor mother, before she died, desired that I 
might be reared honestly ; and strange as it may seem to you, 
Dame Lobkins is a conscientious woman in her own way, — 
it is not her fault if I have turned out as I have done. Now 
I know well that it would grieve her to the quick to see me 
what I am. Secondly, my friend, under my new names, vari- 
ous as they are, — Jackson and Howard, Russell and Pigwig- 
gin, Villiers and Gotobed, Cavendish and Solomons, — yqu 
may well suppose that the good persons in the neighbourhood 
of Thames Court have no suspicion that the adventurous and 
accomplished ruffler, at present captain of this district, under 
the new appellation of Lovett, is in reality no other than the 
obscure and surnameless Paul of the Mug. Now you and I, 
Augustus, have read human nature, though in the black 
letter ; and I know well that were I to make my appearance 
in Thames Court, and were the old lady (as she certainly 
would, not from unkindness, but insobriety, — not that she 
loves me less, but heavy wet more) to divulge the secret of 
that appearance — ” 

“You know well,” interrupted the vivacious Tomlinson, 
“ that the identity of your former meanness with your present 
greatness would be easily traced; the envy and jealousy of 
your early friends aroused; a hint of your whereabout and 
your aliases given to the police, and yourself grabbed, with a 
slight possibility of a hempen consummation.” 

“You conceive me exactly!” answered Clifford. “The 
fact is, that I have observed in nine cases out of ten our 
bravest fellows have been taken off by the treachery of some 
early sweetheart or the envy of some boyish friend. My des- 
tiny is not yet fixed. I am worthy of better things than a 
ride in the cart with a nosegay in my hand; and though I care 
not much about death in itself, I am resolved, if possible, not 
to die a highwayman. Hence my caution, and that prudential 
care for secrecy and safe asylums, which men less wise than 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


209 


you have so often thought an unnatural contrast to my con- 
duct on the road.” 

“Fools!” said the philosophical Tomlinson ; “what has the 
bravery of a warrior to do with his insuring his house from fire?” 

“However,” said Clifford, “I send my good nurse a fine gift 
every now and then to assure her of my safety; and thus, not- 
withstanding my absence, I show my affection by my presents , 

— excuse a pun.” 

“ And have you never been detected by any of your quondam 
associates?” 

“Never! Remember in what a much more elevated sphere 
of life I have been thrown; and who could recognize the 
scamp Paul with a fustian jacket in gentleman Paul with a 
laced waistcoat? Besides, I have diligently avoided every 
place where I was likely to encounter those who saw me in 
childhood. You know how little I frequent flash houses, and 
how scrupulous I am in admitting new confederates into our 
band ; you and Pepper are the only two of my associates — 
save my protege, as you express it, who never deserts the cave 

— that possess a knowledge of my identity with the lost Paul ; 
and as ye have both taken that dread oath to silence, which to 
disobey until indeed I be in the jail or on the gibbet, is almost 
to be assassinated, I consider my secret is little likely to be 
broken, save with my own consent.” 

“True,” said Augustus, nodding; “one more glass, and to 
bed, Mr. Chairman.” 

“I pledge you, my friend; our last glass shall be philan- 
thropically quaffed, — ‘All fools, and may their money soon 
be parted! ’ ” 

“All fools!” cried Tomlinson, filling a bumper; “but I 
quarrel with the wisdom of your toast. May fools be rich, 
and rogues will never be poor! I would make a better liveli- 
hood off a rich fool than a landed estate.” 

So saying, the contemplative and ever-sagacious Tomlinson 
tossed off his bumper; and the pair, having kindly rolled by 
pedal applications the body of Long Ned into a safe and quiet 
corner of the room, mounted the stairs, arm-in-arm, in search 
of somnambular accommodations. 

14 


210 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


CHAPTER XYII. 

That contrast of the hardened and mature, 

The calm brow brooding o’er the project dark, 

With the clear loving heart, and spirit pure 
Of youth, — I love, yet, hating, love to mark ! 

H. Fletcher. 

On the forenoon of the day after the ball, the carriage of 
'William Brandon, packed and prepared, was at the door of his 
abode at Bath ; meanwhile the lawyer was closeted with his 
brother. 

“My dear Joseph, ” said the barrister, “I do not leave you 
without being fully sensible of your kindness evinced to me, 
both in coming hither, contrary to your habits, and accom- 
panying me everywhere, despite of your tastes.” 

“Mention it not, my dear William,” said the kind-hearted 
squire, “ for your delightful society is to me the most agree- 
able (and that ’s what I can say of very few people like you; 
for, for my own part, I generally find the cleverest men the 
most unpleasant ) in the world ! And I think lawyers in par- 
ticular (very different, indeed, from your tribe you are /) per- 
fectly intolerable ! ” 

“I have now,” said Brandon, who with his usual nervous 
quickness of action was walking with rapid strides to and fro 
the apartment, and scarcely noted his brother’s compliment, 
— “I have now another favour to request of you. Consider 
this house and these servants yours for the next month or two 
at least. Don’t interrupt me, — it is no compliment, — I 
speak for our family benefit.” And then seating himself 
next to his brother’s armchair, for a fit of the gout made the 
squire a close prisoner, Brandon unfolded to his brother his 
cherished scheme of marrying Lucy to Lord Mauleverer. 
Notwithstanding the constancy of the earl’s attentions to 
the heiress, the honest squire had never dreamed of their 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


211 


palpable object; and he was overpowered with surprise when 
he heard the lawyer’s expectations. 

“But, my dear brother,” he began, “so great a match for 
my Lucy, the Lord-Lieutenant of the Coun — ” 

“And what of that?” cried Brandon, proudly, and inter- 
rupting his brother. “ Is not the race of Brandon, which has 
matched its scions with royalty, far nobler than that of the 
upstart stock of Mauleverer? What is there presumptuous in 
the hope that the descendant of the Earls of Suffolk should 
regild a faded name with some of the precious dust of the 
quondam silversmiths of London? Besides,” he continued, 
after a pause, “ Lucy will be rich, very rich, and before two 
years my rank may possibly be of the same order as 
Mauleverer’s ! ” 

The squire stared; and Brandon, not giving him time to 
answer, resumed. It is needless to detail the conversation; 
suffice it to say that the artful barrister did not leave his 
brother till he had gained his point, — till Joseph Brandon 
had promised to remain at Bath in possession of the house 
and establishment of his brother; to throw no impediment on 
the suit of Mauleverer; to cultivate society, as before; and 
above all, not to alarm Lucy, who evidently did not yet 
favour Mauleverer exclusively, by hinting to her the hopes 
and expectations of her uncle and father. Brandon, now 
taking leave of his brother, mounted to the drawing-room in 
search of Lucy. He found her leaning over the gilt cage of 
one of her feathered favourites, and speaking to the little 
inmate in that pretty and playful language in which all 
thoughts, innocent yet fond, should be clothed. So beautiful 
did Lucy seem, as she was thus engaged in her girlish and 
caressing employment, and so utterly unlike one meet to be 
the instrument of ambitious designs, and the sacrifice of 
worldly calculations, that Brandon paused, suddenly smitten 
at heart, as he beheld her. He was not, however, slow in 
recovering himself; he approached. “Happy he,” said the 
man of the world, “ for whom caresses and words like these 
are reserved ! ” 

Lucy turned. “ It is ill ! ” she said, pointing to the bird, 


212 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


which sat with its feathers stiff and erect, mute and heedless 
even of that voice which was as musical as its own. 

“ Poor prisoner ! ” said Brandon ; “ even gilt cages and sweet 
tones cannot compensate to thee for the loss of the air and the 
wild woods ! ” 

“But,” said Lucy, anxiously, “it is not confinement which 
makes it ill! If you think so, I will release it instantly.” 

“ How long have you had it? ” asked Brandon. 

“ For three years ! ” said Lucy. 

“And is it your chief favourite? ” 

“Yes; it does not sing so prettily as the other, but it is far 
more sensible, and so affectionate ! ” 

“Can you release it then?” asked Brandon, smiling. 
“Would it not be better to see it die in your custody than 
to let it live and to see it no more?” 

“Oh, no, no!” said Lucy, eagerly; “when I love any one, 
anything, I wish that to be happy, not me ! ” 

As she said this, she took the bird from the cage; and 
bearing it to the open window, kissed it, and held it on her 
hand in the air. The poor bird turned a languid and sickly 
eye around it, as if the sight of the crowded houses and busy 
streets presented nothing familiar or inviting; and it was not 
till Lucy with a tender courage shook it gently from her, that 
it availed itself of the proffered liberty. It flew first to an 
opposite balcony ; and then recovering from a short and as it 
were surprised pause, took a brief circuit above the houses; 
and after disappearing for a few minutes, flew back, circled 
the window, and re-entering, settled once more on the fair 
form of its mistress and nestled into her bosom. 

Lucy covered it with kisses. “You see it will not leave 
me ! ” said she. 

“Who can?” said the uncle, warmly, charmed for the 
moment from every thought but that of kindness for the 
young and soft creature before him, — “who can,” he repeated 
with a sigh, “but an old and withered ascetic like myself? I 
must leave you indeed; see, my carriage is at the door! Will 
my beautiful niece, among the gayeties that surround her, 
condescend now and then to remember the crabbed lawyer, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


213 


and assure him by a line of her happiness and health? 
Though I rarely write any notes but those upon cases, you, 
at least, may be sure of an answer. And tell me, Lucy, if 
there be in all this city one so foolish as to think that these 
idle gems, useful only as a vent for my pride in you, can add 
a single charm to a beauty above all ornament? ” 

So saying, Brandon produced a leathern case ; and touching 
a spring, the imperial flash of diamonds, which would have 
made glad many a patrician heart, broke dazzlingly on Lucy’s 
eyes. 

“No thanks, Lucy,” said Brandon, in answer to his niece’s 
disclaiming and shrinking gratitude; “I do honour to my- 
self, not you; and now bless you, my dear girl. Farewell! 
Should any occasion present itself in which you require an 
immediate adviser, at once kind and wise, I beseech you, my 
dearest Lucy, as a parting request, to have no scruples in 
consulting Lord Mauleverer. Besides his friendship for me, 
he is much interested in you, and you may consult him with 
the more safety and assurance; because” (and tne lawyer 
smiled) “ he is perhaps the only man in the world whom my 
Lucy could not make in love with her. His gallantry may 
appear adulation, but it is never akin to love. Promise me 
that you will not hesitate in this.” 

Lucy gave the promise readily; and Brandon continued in 
a careless tone: “I hear that you danced last night with a 
young gentleman whom no one knew, and whose companions 
bore a very strange appearance. In a place like Bath, society 
is too mixed not to render the greatest caution in forming 
acquaintances absolutely necessary. You must pardon me, 
my dearest niece, if I remark that a young lady owes it not 
only to herself but to her relations to observe the most rigid 
circumspection of conduct. This is a wicked world, and the 
peach-like bloom of character is easily rubbed away. In these 
points Mauleverer can be of great use to you. His knowledge 
of character, his penetration into men, and his tact in man- 
ners are unerring. Pray, be guided by him; whomsoever he 
warns you against, you may be sure is unworthy of your 
acquaintance. God bless you! You will write to me often 


214 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


and frankly, dear Lucy; tell me all that happens to you, — 
all that interests, nay, all that displeases.” 

Brandon then, who had seemingly disregarded the blushes 
with which during his speech Lucy’s cheeks had been spread, 
folded his niece in his arms, and hurried, as if to hide his 
feelings, into his carriage. When the horses had turned the 
street, he directed the postilions to stop at Lord Mauleverer’s. 
“Now,” said he to himself, “if I can get this clever coxcomb 
to second my schemes, and play according to my game and 
not according to his own vanity, I shall have a knight of the 
garter for my nephew-in-law ! ” 

Meanwhile Lucy, all in tears, for she loved her uncle 
greatly, ran down to the squire to show him Brandon’s mag- 
nificent present. 

“Ah,” said the squire, with a sigh, “few men were born 
with more good, generous, and great qualities (pity only that 
his chief desire was to get on in the world; for my part, I 
think no motive makes greater and more cold-hearted rogues) 
than my brother William ! ” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Why did she love him ? Curious fool, be still ! 

Is human love the growth of human will? 

To her he might be gentleness ! 

Lord Byron. 

In three weeks from the time of his arrival, Captain Clifford 
was the most admired man in Bath. It is true the gentlemen, 
who have a quicker tact as to the respectability of their own 
sex than women, might have looked a little shy upon him, 
had he not himself especially shunned appearing intrusive, 
and indeed rather avoided the society of men than courted it; 
so that after he had fought a duel with a baronet (the son of a 
shoemaker), who called him one Clifford, and had exhibited 
a flea-bitten horse, allowed to be the finest in Bath, he rose 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


215 


insensibly into a certain degree of respect with the one sex as 
well as popularity with the other. But wbat always attracted 
and kept alive suspicion, was his intimacy with so peculiar 
and dashing a gentleman as Mr. Edward Pepper. People could 
get over a certain frankness in Clifford’s address, but the 
most lenient were astounded by the swagger of Long Ned. 
Clifford, however, not insensible to the ridicule attached to 
his acquaintances, soon managed to pursue his occupations 
alone; nay, he took a lodging to himself, and left Long Ned 
and Augustus Tomlinson (the latter to operate as a check on 
the former) to the quiet enjoyment of the hairdresser’s apart- 
ments. He himself attended all public gayeties; and his 
mien, and the appearance of wealth which he maintained, 
procured him access into several private circles which pre- 
tended to be exclusive, — as if people who had daughters ever 
could be exclusive ! Many were the kind looks, nor few the 
inviting letters, which he received; and if his sole object had 
been to marry an heiress, he would have found no difficulty in 
attaining it. But he devoted himself entirely to Lucy Bran- 
don ; and to win one glance from her, he would have renounced 
all the heiresses in the kingdom. Most fortunately for him, 
Mauleverer, whose health was easily deranged, had fallen ill 
the very day William Brandon left Bath; and his lordship was 
thus rendered unable to watch the movements of Lucy, and 
undermiiie or totally prevent the success of her lover. Miss 
Brandon, indeed, had at first, melted by the kindness of her 
uncle, and struck with the sense of his admonition (for she 
was no self-willed young lady, who was determined to be in 
love), received Captain Clifford’s advances with a coldness 
which, from her manner the first evening they had met at 
Bath, occasioned him no less surprise than mortification. He 
retreated, and recoiled on the squire, who, patient and bold, 
as usual, was sequestered in his favourite corner. By accident, 
Clifford trod on the squire’s gouty digital; and in apologiz- 
ing for the offence, was so struck by the old gentleman’s good- 
nature and peculiarity of expressing himself, that without 
knowing who he was, he entered into conversation with him. 
There was an off-hand sort of liveliness and candour, not to 


216 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


say wit, about Clifford, which always had a charm for the 
elderly, who generally like frankness above all the cardinal 
virtues; the squire was exceedingly pleased with him. The 
acquaintance, once begun, was naturally continued without 
difficulty when Clifford ascertained who was his new friend; 
and next morning, meeting in the pump-room, the squire 
asked Clifford to dinner. The entree to the house thus 
gained, the rest was easy. Long before Mauleverer recov- 
ered his health, the mischief effected by his rival was almost 
beyond redress; and the heart of the pure, the simple, the 
affectionate Lucy Brandon was more than half lost to the law- 
less and vagrant cavalier who officiates as the hero of this 
tale. 

One morning, Clifford and Augustus strolled out together. 
“Let us,” said the latter, who was in a melancholy mood, 
“leave the busy streets, and indulge in a philosophical con- 
versation on the nature of man, while we are enjoying a little 
fresh air in the country.” Clifford assented to the proposal, 
and the pair slowly sauntered up one of the hills that surround 
the city of Bladud. 

“There are certain moments,” said Tomlinson, looking pen- 
sively down at his kerseymere gaiters, “ when we are like the 
fox in the nursery rhyme, ‘ The fox had a wound, he could not 
tell where, ’ — we feel extremely unhappy, and we cannot tell 
why. A dark and sad melancholy grows over us ; we shun the 
face of man; we wrap ourselves in our thoughts like silk- 
worms; we mutter fag-ends of dismal songs; tears come into 
our eyes; we recall all the misfortunes that have ever hap- 
pened to us ; we stoop in our gait, and bury our hands in our 
breeches-pockets ; we say, ‘ What is life? — a stone to be shied 
into a horsepond! ’ We pine for some congenial heart, and 
have an itching desire to talk prodigiously about ourselves; 
all other subjects seem weary, stale, and unprofitable. We 
feel as if a fly could knock us down, and are in a humour to fall 
in love, and make a very sad piece of business of it. Yet with 
all this weakness we have at these moments a finer opinion of 
ourselves than we ever had before. We call our megrims the 
melancholy of a sublime soul, the yearnings of an indigestion 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


217 


we denominate yearnings after immortality, nay, sometimes ‘a 
proof of the nature of the soul ! ’ May I find some biographer 
who understands such sensations well, and may he style those 
melting emotions the offspring of the poetical character , 1 
which, in reality, are the offspring of — a mutton-chop ! ” 

“You jest pleasantly enough on your low spirits,” said 
Clifford; “but I have a cause for mine.” 

“What then?” cried Tomlinson. “So much the easier is 
it to cure them. The mind can cure the evils that spring 
from the mind. It is only a fool and a quack and a driveller 
when it professes to heal the evils that spring from the body. 
My blue devils spring from the body ; consequently my mind, 
which, as you know, is a particularly wise mind, wrestles not 
against them. Tell me frankly,” renewed Augustus, after a 
pause, “do you ever repent? Do you ever think, if you had 
been a shop-boy with a white apron about your middle, that 
you would have been a happier and a better member of society 
than you now are?” 

“ Repent ! ” said Clifford, fiercely ; and his answer opened 
more of his secret heart, its motives, its reasonings, and its 
peculiarities than were often discernible, — “ repent ! that is 
the idlest word in our language. No; the moment I repent, 
that moment I reform! Never can it seem to me an atone- 
ment for crime merely to regret it. My mind would lead me, 
not to regret, but to repair ! Repent ! no, not yet. The older 
I grow, the more I see of men and of the callings of social 
life, the more I, an open knave, sicken at the glossed and 
covert dishonesties around. I acknowledge no allegiance to 
society. From my birth to this hour, I have received no sin- 
gle favour from its customs or its laws; openly I war against 

1 Vide Moore’s “ Life of Byron,” in which it is satisfactorily shown that if 
a man fast forty-eight hours, then eat three lobsters, and drink Heaven knows 
how many bottles of claret ; if, when he wake the next morning, he sees 
himself abused as a demon by half the periodicals of the country, — if, in a 
word, he be broken in his health, irregular in his habits, unfortunate in his 
affairs, unhappy in his home, and if theu he should be so extremely eccen- 
tric as to be low-spirited and misanthropical, the low spirits and the misan- 
thropy are by no means to be attributed to the above agreeable circumstancesi 
but, God wot, to the “ poetical character” ! 


218 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


it, and patiently will I meet its revenge. This may be crime; 
but it looks light in my eyes when I gaze around, and survey 
on all sides the masked traitors who acknowledge large debts 
to society, who profess to obey its laws, adore its institutions, 
and, above all — oh, how righteously ! — attack all those who 
attack it, and who yet lie and cheat and defraud and peculate, 
— publicly reaping all the comforts, privately filching all the 
profits. Repent! — of what? I come into the world friend- 
less and poor ; I find a body of laws hostile to the friendless 
and the poor ! To those laws hostile to me, then, I acknowl- 
edge hostility in my turn. Between us are the conditions of 
war. Let them expose a weakness, — I insist on my right to 
seize the advantage; let them defeat me, and I allow their 
right to destroy.” 1 

“Passion,” said Augustus, coolly, “is the usual enemy of 
reason; in your case it is the friend.” 

The pair had now gained the summit of a hill which com- 
manded a view of the city below. Here Augustus, who was 
a little short-winded, paused to recover breath. As soon as 
he had done so, he pointed with his forefinger to the scene 
beneath, and said enthusiastically, “What a subject for 
contemplation ! ” 

Clifford was about to reply, when suddenly the sound of 
laughter and voices was heard behind. “ Let us fly ! ” cried 
Augustus ; “ on this day of spleen man delights me not — or 
woman either.” 

“ Stay ! ” said Clifford, in a trembling accent ; for among 
those voices he recognized one which had already acquired 
over him an irresistible and bewitching power. Augustus 
sighed, and reluctantly remained motionless. Presently a 
winding in the road brought into view a party of pleasure, 
some on foot, some on horseback, others in the little vehicles 
which even at that day haunted watering-places, and called 
themselves “Flies” or “Swallows.” 

But among the gay procession Clifford had only eyes for 
one! Walking with that elastic step which so rarely survives 

1 The author need not, he hopes, observe that these sentiments are 
Mr. Paul Clifford’s, not his. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


219 


the first epoch of youth, by the side of the heavy chair in 
which her father was drawn, the fair beauty of Lucy Brandon 
threw — at least in the eyes of her lover — a magic and a lus- 
tre over the whole group. He stood for a moment, stilling 
the heart that leaped at her bright looks and the gladness of 
her innocent laugh; and then recovering himself, he walked 
slowly, and with a certain consciousness of the effect of his 
own singularly handsome person, towards the party. The 
good squire received him with his usual kindness, and 
informed him, according to that lucidus ordo which he so 
especially favoured, of the whole particulars of their excur- 
sion. There was something worthy of an artist’s sketch in 
the scene at that moment: the old squire in his chair, with 
his benevolent face turned towards Clifford, and his hands 
resting on his cane, Clifford himself bowing down his stately 
head to hear the details of the father; the beautiful daughter 
on the other side of the chair, her laugh suddenly stilled, her 
gait insensibly more composed, and blush chasing blush over 
the smooth and peach-like loveliness of her cheek; the party, 
of all sizes, ages, and attire, affording ample scope for the 
caricaturist; and the pensive figure of Augustus , Tomlinson 
(who, by the by, was exceedingly like Liston) standing apart 
from the rest, on the brow of the hill where Clifford had left 
him, and moralizing on the motley procession, with one hand 
hid in his waistcoat, and the other caressing his chin, which 
slowly and pendulously with the rest of his head moved up 
and down. 

As the party approached the brow of the hill, the view of 
the city below was so striking that there was a general pause 
for the purpose of survey. One young lady in particular 
drew forth her pencil, and began sketching, while her mamma 
looked complacently on, and abstractedly devoured a sand- 
wich. It was at this time, in the general pause, that Clifford 
and Lucy found themselves — Heaven knows how ! — next to 
each other, and at a sufficient distance from the squire and the 
rest of the party to feel in some measure alone. There was 
a silence in both which neither dared to break; when Lucy, 
after looking at and toying with a flower that she had brought 


220 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


from the place which the party had been to see, accidentally 
dropped it; and Clifford and herself stooping at the same mo- 
ment to recover it, their hands met. Involuntarily, Clifford 
detained the soft fingers in his own; his eyes, that encoun- 
tered hers, so speil-bound and arrested them that for once 
they did not sink beneath his gaze ; his lips moved, but many 
and vehement emotions so suffocated his voice that no sound 
escaped them. But all the heart was in the eyes of each; 
that moment fixed their destinies. Henceforth there was an 
era from which they dated a new existence ; a nucleus around 
which their thoughts, their remembrances, and their passions 
clung. The great gulf was passed; they stood on the same 
shore, and felt that though still apart and disunited, on that 
shore was no living creature but themselves! Meanwhile 
Augustus Tomlinson, on finding himself surrounded by per- 
sons eager to gaze and to listen, broke from his moodiness and 
reserve. Looking full at his next neighbour, and flourishing 
his right hand in the air, till he suffered it to rest in the 
direction of the houses and chimneys below, he repeated that 
moral exclamation which had been wasted on Clifford, with a 
more solemn and a less passionate gravity than before, — 

“ What a subject, ma’am, for contemplation ! 57 

“Very sensibly said, indeed, sir,” said the lady addressed, 
who was rather of a serious turn. 

“I never ,’ 7 resumed Augustus in a louder key, and looking 
round for auditors, — “I never see a great town from the top 
of a hill without thinking of an apothecary’s shop ! 77 

“Lord, sir ! 77 said the lady. Tomlinson’s end was gained. 
Struck with the quaintness of the notion, a little crowd gath- 
ered instantly around him, to hear it further developed. 

“Of an apothecary’s shop, ma’am!” repeated Tomlinson. 
“ There lie your simples and your purges and your cordials 
and your poisons, — all things to heal and to strengthen and to 
destroy. There are drugs enough in that collection to save 
you, to cure you all ; but none of you know how to use them, 
nor what medicines to ask for, nor what portions to take ; so 
that the greater part of you swallow a wrong dose, and die 
of the remedy ! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


221 


“But if the town be the apothecary’s shop, what, in the 
plan of your idea, stands for the apothecary?” asked an old 
gentleman, who perceived at what Tomlinson was driving. 

“The apothecary, sir,” answered Augustus, stealing his 
notion from Clifford, and sinking his voice lest the true pro- 
prietor should overhear him (Clifford was otherwise employed), 
— “the apothecary, sir, is the Law! It is the law that stands 
behind the counter, and dispenses to each man the dose he 
should take. To the poor it gives bad drugs gratuitously; to 
the rich, pills to stimulate the appetite; to the latter, pre- 
miums for luxury; to the former, only speedy refuges from 
life ! Alas ! either your apothecary is but an ignorant quack, 
or his science itself is but in its cradle. He blunders as much 
as you would do if left to your own selection. Those who 
have recourse to him seldom speak gratefully of his skill. 
He relieves you, it is true, — but of your money, not your 
malady; and the only branch of his profession in which he 
is an adept is that which enables him to bleed you! 0 man- 
kind! ” continued Augustus, “what noble creatures you ought 
to be! You have keys to all sciences, all arts, all mysteries, 
but one ! You have not a notion how j^ou ought to be gov- 
erned; you cannot frame a tolerable law, for the life and soul 
of you! You make yourselves as uncomfortable as you can 
by all sorts of galling and vexatious institutions, and you 
throw the blame upon 1 Fate.’ You lay down rules it is im- 
possible to comprehend, much less to obey ; and you call each 
other monsters, because you cannot conquer the impossibility ! 
You invent all sorts of vices, under pretence of making laws 
for preserving virtue ; and the anomalous artificialities of con- 
duct yourselves produce, you say you are born with ; you make 
a machine by the perversest art you can think of, and you call 
it, with a sigh, ‘ Human Nature.’ With a host of good dis- 
positions struggling at your breasts, you insist upon libelling 
the Almighty, and declaring that he meant you to be wicked. 
Nay, you even call the man mischievous and seditious who 
begs and implores you to be one jot better than you are. 0 
mankind! you are like a nosegay bought at Covent Garden. 
The flowers are lovely, the scent delicious. Mark that glorb 


222 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


ous hue; contemplate that bursting petal! How beautiful, 
how redolent of health, of nature, of the dew and breath and 
blessing of Heaven, are you all! But as for the dirty piece 
of string that ties you together, one would think you had 
picked it out of the kennel.” 

So saying, Tomlinson turned on his heel, broke away from 
the crowd, and solemnly descended the hill. The party of 
pleasure slowly followed; and Clifford, receiving an invita- 
tion from the squire to partake of his family dinner, walked 
by the side of Lucy, and felt as if his spirit were drunk with 
the airs of Eden. 

A brother squire, who among the gayeties of Bath was 
almost as forlorn as Joseph Brandon himself, partook of the 
Lord of Warlock’s hospitality. When the three gentlemen 
adjourned to the drawing-room, the two elder sat down to a 
game at backgammon, and Clifford was left to the undisturbed 
enjoyment of Lucy’s conversation. She was sitting by the 
window when Clifford joined her. On the table by her side 
were scattered books, the charm of which (they were chiefly 
poetry) she had only of late learned to discover; there also 
were strewn various little masterpieces of female ingenuity, 
in which the fairy fingers of Lucy Brandon were especially 
formed to excel. The shades of evening were rapidly dark- 
ening over the empty streets; and in the sky, which was 
cloudless and transparently clear, the stars came gradually 
out one by one, until, — 

“ As water does a sponge, so their soft light 
Filled the void, hollow, universal air.” 

Beautiful evening! (if we, as well as Augustus Tomlinson, 
may indulge in an apostrophe) — beautiful evening! For thee 
all poets have had a song, and surrounded thee with rills and 
waterfalls and dews and flowers and sheep and bats and mel- 
ancholy and owls; yet we must confess that to us, who in 
this very sentimental age are a bustling, worldly, hard-minded 
person, jostling our neighbours, and thinking of the main 
chance, — to us thou art never so charming as when we meet 
thee walking in thy gray hood through the emptying streets 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


223 


and among the dying sounds of a city. We love to feel the 
stillness where all, two hours back, was clamour. We love to 
see the dingy abodes of Trade and Luxury — those restless 
patients of earth’s constant fever — contrasted and canopied 
by a heaven full of purity and quietness and peace. We love 
to fill our thought with speculations on man, even though the 
man be the muffin-man, rather than with inanimate objects, 
— hills and streams, — things to dream about, not to meditate 
on. Man is the subject of far nobler contemplation, of far 
more glowing hope, of a far purer and loftier vein of senti- 
ment, than all the “ floods and fells” in the universe; and 
that, sweet evening! is one reason why we like that the earn- 
est and tender thoughts thou excitest within us should be 
rather surrounded by the labours and tokens of our species 
than by sheep and bats and melincholy and owls. But 
whether, most blessed evening! thou delightest us in the 
country or in the town, thou equally disposest us to make 
and to feel love ! Thou art the cause of more marriages and 
more divorces than any other time in the twenty-four hours ! 
Eyes that were common eyes to us before, touched by thy 
enchanting and magic shadows, become inspired, and preach 
to us of heaven. A softness settles on features that were 
harsh to us while the sun shone; a mellow “ light of love” 
reposes on the complexion which by day we would have 
steeped “full fathom five” in a sea of Mrs. Gowland’s lotion. 
What, then, thou modest hypocrite ! to those who already and 
deeply love, — what, then, of danger and of paradise dost thou 
bring? 

Silent, and stilling the breath which heaved in both quick 
and fitfully, Lucy and Clifford sat together. The streets were 
utterly deserted; and the loneliness, as they looked below, 
made them feel the more intensely not only the emotions 
which swelled within them, but the undefined and electric 
sympathy which, in uniting them, divided them from the 
world. The quiet around was broken by a distant strain of 
rude music; and as it came nearer, two forms of no poetical 
order grew visible. The one was a poor blind man, who was 
drawing from his flute tones in which the melancholy beauty 


224 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


of the air compensated for any deficiency (the deficiency was 
but slight) in the execution. A woman much younger than 
the musician, and with something of beauty in her counte- 
nance, accompanied him, holding a tattered hat, and looking 
wistfully up at the windows of the silent street. We said two 
forms ; we did the injustice of forgetfulness to another, — a 
rugged and simple friend, it is true, but one that both min- 
strel and wife had many and moving reasons to love. This 
was a little wiry terrier, with dark piercing eyes, that glanced 
quickly and sagaciously in all quarters from beneath the 
shaggy covert that surrounded them. Slowly the animal 
moved onward, pulling gently against the string by which 
he was held, and by which he guided his master. Once his 
fidelity was tempted: another dog invited him to play; the 
poor terrier looked anxiously and doubtingly round, and then, 
uttering a low growl of denial, pursued — 

“ The noiseless tenour of his way.” 

The little procession stopped beneath the window where 
Lucy and Clifford sat; for the quick eye of the woman had 
perceived them, and she laid her hand on the blind man’s 
arm, and whispered him. He took the hint, and changed his 
air into one of love. Clifford glanced at Lucy; her cheek was 
dyed in blushes. The air was over ; another succeeded, — it was 
of the same kind; a third, — the burden was still unaltered; 
and then Clifford threw into the street a piece of money, and 
the dog wagged his abridged and dwarfed tail, and darting 
forward, picked it up in his mouth ; and the woman (she had 
a kind face!) patted the officious friend, even before she 
thanked the donor, and then she dropped the money with a 
cheering word or two into the blind man’s pocket, and the 
three wanderers moved slowly on. Presently they came to a 
place where the street had been mended, and the stones lay 
scattered about. Here the woman no longer trusted to the 
dog’s guidance, but anxiously hastened to the musician, and 
led him with evident tenderness and minute watchfulness 
over the rugged way. When they had passed the danger, the 
man stopped; and before he released the hand which had 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


225 


guided him, he pressed it gratefully, and then both the hus- 
band and the wife stooped down and caressed the dog. This 
little scene — one of those rough copies of the loveliness of 
human affections, of which so many are scattered about the 
highways of the world — both the lovers had involuntarily 
watched; and now as they withdrew their eyes, — those eyes 
settled on each other, — Lucy’s swam in tears. 

“To be loved and tended by the one I love,” said Clifford, 
in a low voice, “ I would walk blind and barefoot over the 
whole earth ! ” 

Lucy sighed very gently; and placing her pretty hands (the 
one clasped over the other) upon her knee, looked down wist- 
fully on them, but made no answer. Clifford drew his chair 
nearer, and gazed on her, as she sat ; the long dark eyelashes 
drooping over her eyes, and contrasting the ivory lids; her 
delicate profile half turned from him, and borrowing a more 
touching beauty from the soft light that dwelt upon it ; and 
her full yet still scarcely developed bosom heaving at thoughts 
which she did not analyze, but was content to feel at once 
vague and delicious. He gazed, and his lips trembled; he 
longed to speak ; he longed to say but those words which con- 
vey what volumes have endeavoured to express and have only 
weakened by detail, — “I love.” How he resisted the yearn- 
ings of his heart, we know not, — but he did resist ; and Lucy, 
after a confused and embarrassed pause, took up one of the 
poems on the table, and asked him some questions about a 
particular passage in an old ballad which he had once pointed 
to her notice. The passage related to a border chief, one of 
the Armstrongs of old, who, having been seized by the Eng- 
lish and condemned to death, vented his last feelings in a 
passionate address to his own home — his rude tower — and 
his newly wedded bride. “Do you believe,” said Lucy, as 
their conversation began to flow, “that one so lawless and 
eager for bloodshed and strife as this robber is described to 
be, could be so capable of soft affections?” 

“I do,” said Clifford, “because he was not sensible that he 
was as criminal as you esteem him. If a man cherish the 
idea that his actions are not evil, he will retain at his heart 


15 


226 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


all its better and gentler sensations as much as if he had never 
sinned. The savage murders his enemy, and when he returns 
home is not the less devoted to his friend or the less anxious 
for his children. To harden and embrute the kindly disposi- 
tions, we must not only indulge in guilt but feel that we are 
guilty. Oh! many that the world load with their opprobrium 
are capable of acts — nay, have committed acts — which in 
others the world would reverence and adore. Would you know 
whether a man’s heart be shut to the power of love, — ask what 
he is, not to his foes, but to his friends! Crime, too,” con- 
tinued Clifford, speaking fast and vehemently, while his eyes 
flashed and the dark blood rushed to his cheek, — “ crime, — 
what is crime? Men embody their worst prejudices, their 
most evil passions, in a heterogeneous and contradictory code ; 
and whatever breaks this code they term a crime. When they 
make no distinction in the penalty — that is to say, in the 
estimation — awarded both to murder and to a petty theft 
imposed on the weak will by famine, we ask nothing else to 
convince us that they are ignorant of the very nature of guilt, 
and that they make up in ferocity for the want of wisdom.” 

Lucy looked in alarm at the animated and fiery countenance 
of the speaker. Clifford recovered himself after a moment’s 
pause, and rose from his seat, with the gay and frank laugh 
which made one of his peculiar characteristics. “ There is a 
singularity in politics, Miss Brandon,” said he, “which I dare 
say you have often observed, — namely, that those who are 
least important are always most noisy, and that the chief peo- 
ple who lose their temper are those who have nothing to gain 
in return.” 

As Clifford spoke, the doors were thrown open, and some 
visitors to Miss Brandon were announced. The good squire 
was still immersed in the vicissitudes of his game ; and the 
sole task of receiving and entertaining “the company,” as the 
chambermaids have it, fell, as usual, upon Lucy. Fortunately 
for her, Clifford was one of those rare persons who possess 
eminently the talents of society. There was much in his gay 
and gallant temperament, accompanied as it was with senti* 
ment and ardour, that resembled our beau-ideal of those chev- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


227 


aliers, ordinarily peculiar to the Continent, — heroes equally 
in the drawing-room and the field. Observant, courteous, 
witty, and versed in the various accomplishments that com- 
bine (that most unfrequent of all unions !) vivacity with grace, 
he was especially formed for that brilliant world from which 
his circumstances tended to exclude him. Under different 
auspices, he might have been — Pooh ! we are running into 
a most pointless commonplace ; what might any man be under 
auspices different from those by which his life has been 
guided? Music soon succeeded to conversation, and Clifford’s 
voice was of necessity put into requisition. Miss Brandon 
had just risen from the harpsichord, as he sat down to per- 
form his part ; and she stood by him with the rest of the group 
while he sang. Only twice his eye stole to that spot which 
her breath and form made sacred to him ; once when he began, 
and once when he concluded his song. Perhaps the recollec- 
tion of their conversation inspired him; certainly it dwelt 
upon his mind at the moment, — threw a richer flush over his 
brow, and infused a more meaning and heartfelt softness into 
his tone. 

STANZAS. 

When I leave thee, oh ! ask not the world what that heart 
Which adores thee to others may be ! 

I know that I sin When from thee I depart, 

But my guilt shall not light upon thee ! 

My life is a river which glasses a ray 

That hath deigned to descend from above ; 

Whatever the banks that o’ershadow its way, 

It mirrors the light of thv love. 

Though the waves may run high when the night wind awakes, 
And hurries the stream to its fall ; 

Though broken and wild be the billows it makes, 

Thine image still trembles on all! ” 

While this ominous love between Clifford and Lucy was 
thus finding fresh food in every interview and every oppor- 
tunity, the unfortunate Maul ever er, firmly persuaded that his 
complaint was a relapse of what he termed the “Warlock dys- 
pepsia,” was waging dire war with the remains of the beef 


228 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


and pudding, which he tearfully assured his physicians “were 
lurking in his constitution.” As Mauleverer, though com- 
plaisant, like most men of unmistakable rank, to all his 
acquaintances, whatever might be their grade, possessed but 
very few friends intimate enough to enter his sick-chamber, 
and none of that few were at Bath, it will readily be perceived 
that he was in blissful ignorance of the growing fortunes of 
his rival; and to say the exact truth, illness, which makes 
a man’s thoughts turn very much upon himself, banished many 
of the most tender ideas usually floating in his mind around 
the image of Lucy Brandon. His pill superseded his passion; 
and he felt that there are draughts in the world more power- 
ful in their effects than those in the phials of Alcidonis . 1 He 
very often thought, it is true, how pleasant it would be for 
Lucy to smooth his pillow, and Lucy to prepare that mixture ; 
but then Mauleverer had an excellent valet, who hoped to 
play the part enacted by Gil Bias towards the honest Licen- 
tiate, and to nurse a legacy while he was nursing his master. 
And the earl, who was tolerably good-tempered, was forced 
to confess that it would be scarcely possible for any one “ to 
know his ways better than Smoothson.” Thus, during his 
illness, the fair form of his intended bride little troubled the 
peace of the noble adorer. And it was not till he found him- 
self able to eat three good dinners consecutively, with a toler- 
able appetite, that Mauleverer recollected that he was violently 
in love. As soon as this idea was fully reinstated in his mem- 
ory, and he had been permitted by his doctor to allow himself 
“a little cheerful society,” Mauleverer resolved to go to the 
rooms for an hour or two. 

It may be observed that most great personages have some 
favourite place, some cherished Baise, at which they love to 
throw off their state, and to play the amiable instead of the 
splendid; and Bath at that time, from its gayety, its ease, 
the variety of character to be found in its haunts, and the 
obliging manner in which such characters exposed themselves 
to ridicule, was exactly the place calculated to please a man 
like Mauleverer, who loved at once to be admired and to satir- 

1 See Marmontel’s pretty tale of “ Les Quatres Flacons.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


229 


ize. He was therefore an idolized person at the city of Bla- 
dud; and as he entered the rooms he was surrounded by a 
whole band of imitators and sycophants, delighted to find his 
lordship looking so much better and declaring himself so con- 
valescent. As soon as the earl had bowed and smiled, and 
shaken hands sufficiently to sustain his reputation, he saun- 
tered towards the dancers in search of Lucy. He found her 
not only exactly in the same spot in which he had last beheld 
her, but dancing with exactly the same partner who had be- 
fore provoked all the gallant nobleman’s jealousy and wrath. 
Mauleverer, though not by any means addicted to preparing 
his compliments beforehand, had just been conning a delicate 
speech for Lucy ; but no sooner did the person of her partner 
flash on him than the whole flattery vanished at once from his 
recollection. He felt himself grow pale; and when Lucy 
turned, and seeing him near, addressed him in the anxious 
and soft tone which she thought due to her uncle’s friend on 
his recovery, Mauleverer bowed, confused and silent; and 
that green-eyed passion, which would have convulsed the 
mind of a true lover, altering a little the course of its fury, 
effectually disturbed the manner of the courtier. 

Retreating to an obscure part of the room, where he could 
see all without being conspicuous, Mauleverer now employed 
himself in watching the motions and looks of the young pair. 
He was naturally a penetrating and quick observer, and in 
this instance jealousy sharpened his talents ; he saw enough to 
convince him that Lucy was already attached to Clifford; and 
being, by that conviction, fully persuaded that Lucy was 
necessary to his own happiness, he resolved to lose not a 
moment in banishing Captain Clifford from her presence, or 
at least in instituting such inquiries into that gentleman’s 
relatives, rank, and respectability as would, he hoped, render 
such banishment a necessary consequence of the research. 

Fraught with this determination, Mauleverer repaired at 
once to the retreat of the squire, and engaging him in conver- 
sation, bluntly asked him who the deuce Miss Brandon was 
dancing with. 

The squire, a little piqued at this brusquerie, replied by a 


230 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


long eulogium on Paul; and Mauleverer, after hearing it 
throughout with the blandest smile imaginable, told the 
squire, very politely, that he was sure Mr. Brandon’s good- 
nature had misled him. “ Clifford!” said he, repeating the 
name, — “Clifford! It is one of those names which are par- 
ticularly selected by persons nobody knows, — first, because 
the name is good, and secondly, because it is common. My 
long and dear friendship with your brother makes me feel 
peculiarly anxious on any point relative to his niece; and, 
indeed, my dear William, overrating, perhaps, my knowledge 
of the world and my influence in society, but not my affec- 
tion for him, besought me to assume the liberty of esteem- 
ing myself a friend, nay, even a relation of yours and Miss 
Brandon’s; so that I trust you do not consider my caution 
impertinent.” 

The flattered squire assured him that he was particularly 
honoured, so far from deeming his lordship (which never 
could be the case with people so distinguished as his lordship 
was , especially /) impertinent. 

Lord Mauleverer, encouraged by this speech, artfully 
renewed, and succeeded, if not in convincing the squire that 
the handsome captain was a suspicious character, at least in 
persuading him that common prudence required that he should 
find out exactly who the handsome captain was, especially as 
he was in the habit of dining with the squire thrice a week, 
and dancing with Lucy every night. 

“See,” said Mauleverer, “he approaches you now; I will 
retreat to the chair by the fireplace, and you shall cross- 
examine him, — I have no doubt you will do it with the 
utmost delicac.y.” 

So saying, Mauleverer took possession of a seat where he 
was not absolutely beyond hearing (slightly deaf as he was) 
of the ensuing colloquy, though the position of his seat 
screened him from sight. Mauleverer was esteemed a man 
of the most punctilious honour in private life, and he would 
not have been seen in the act of listening to other people’s 
conversation for the world. 

Hemming with an air and resettling himself as Clifford 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


231 


approached, the squire thus skilfully commenced the attack: 
“Ah, ha! my good Captain Clifford, and how do you do? I 
saw you (and I am very glad, my friend, as every one else is, 
to see you) at a distance. And where have you left my 
daughter?” 

“Miss Brandon is dancing with Mr. Musk well, sir,” 
answered Clifford. 

“Oh! she is! Mr. Muskwell, — humph! Good family the 
Muskwells, — came from Primrose Hall. Pray, Captain, — 
not that I want to know for my own sake, for I am a strange, 
odd person, I believe, and I am thoroughly convinced (some 
people are censorious, and others, thank God, are not!) of 
your respectability, — what family do you come from? You 
won’t think my — my caution impertinent? ” added the shrewd 
old gentleman, borrowing that phrase which he thought so 
friendly in the mouth of Lord Mauleverer. 

Clifford coloured for a moment, but replied with a quiet 
archness of look, “Family! oh, my dear sir, I come from an 
old family, — a very old family indeed.” 

“So I always thought; and in what part of the world?” 

“Scotland, sir, — all our family come from Scotland; 
namely, all who live long do, — the rest die young.” 

“Ay, particular air does agree with particular constitu- 
tions. I, for instance, could not live in all countries; not — 
you take me — in the North!” 

“Few honest men can live there,” said Clifford, dryly. 

“And,” resumed the squire, a little embarrassed by the 
nature of his task, and the cool assurance of his young friend, 
— “ and pray, Captain Clifford, what regiment do you belong 
to?” 

“ Regiment? — oh, the Rifles ! ” answered Clifford. (“ Deuce 
is in me,” muttered he, “if I can resist a jest, though I break 
my neck over it.”) 

“A very gallant body of men,” said the squire. 

“No doubt of that, sir!” rejoined Clifford. 

“And do you think, Captain Clifford,” renewed the squire, 
“that it is a good corps for getting on?” 

“It is rather a bad one for getting off,” muttered the 


232 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Captain ; and then aloud, “ Why, we have not much interest 
at court, sir.” 

“Oh! but then there is a wider scope, as my brother the 
lawyer says — and no man knows better — for merit. I dare 
say you have seen many a man elevated from the ranks?” 

“Nothing more common, sir, than such elevation; and so 
great is the virtue of our corps, that I have also known not a 
few willing to transfer the honour to their comrades.” 

“You don’t say so! ” exclaimed the squire, opening his eyes 
at such disinterested magnanimity. 

“But,” said Clifford, who began to believe he might carry 
the equivoke too far, and who thought, despite of his jesting, 
that it was possible to strike out a more agreeable vein of con- 
versation — “ but, sir, if you remember, you have not yet fin- 
ished that youthful hunting adventure of yours, when the 
hounds were lost at Burnham Copse.” 

“ Oh, very true, ” cried the squire, quite forgetting his late 
suspicions ; and forthwith he began a story that promised to 
be as long as the chase it recorded. So charmed was he, when 
he had finished it, with the character of the gentleman who 
had listened to it so delightedly, that on rejoining Maul- 
everer, he told the earl, with an important air, that he had 
strictly examined the young captain, and that he had fully 
convinced himself of the excellence of his family, as well as 
the rectitude of his morals. Mauleverer listened with a coun- 
tenance of polite incredulity; he had heard but little of the 
conversation that had taken place between the pair; but on 
questioning the squire upon sundry particulars of Clifford’s 
birth, parentage, and property, he found him exactly as igno- 
rant as before. The courtier, however, seeing further expos- 
tulation was in vain, contented himself with patting the 
squire’s shoulder, and saying, with a mysterious urbanity, 
“ Ah, sir, you are too good ! ” 

With these words he turned on his heel, and, not yet 
despairing, sought the daughter. He found Miss Brandon 
just released from dancing, and with a kind of paternal gal- 
lantry, he offered his arm to parade the apartments. After 
some preliminary flourish, and reference for the thousandth 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


233 


time to his friendship for William Brandon, the earl spoke 
to her about that “ hue-looking young man who called himself 
Captain Clifford.” 

Unfortunately for Mauleverer, he grew a little too un- 
guarded, as his resentment against the interference of 
Clifford warmed with his language, and he dropped- in his 
anger one or two words of caution, which especially offended 
the delicacy of Miss Brandon. 

“Take care how I encourage, my lord!” said Lucy, with 
glowing cheeks, repeating the words which had so affronted 
her, “ I really must beg you — ” 

“You mean, dear Miss Brandon,” interrupted Mauleverer, 
squeezing her hand with respectful tenderness, “that you 
must beg me to apologize for my inadvertent expression. I 
do most sincerely. If I had felt less interest in your happi- 
ness, believe me, I should have been more guarded in my 
language.” 

Miss Brandon bowed stiffly, and the courtier saw, with 
secret rage, that the country beauty was not easily appeased, 
even by an apology from Lord Mauleverer. “ I have seen the 
time,” thought he, “when young unmarried ladies would have 
deemed an affront from me an honour! They would have 
gone into hysterics at an apology ! ” Before he had time to 
make his peace, the squire joined them; and Lucy, taking 
her father’s arm, expressed her wish to return home. The 
squire was delighted at the proposition. It would have been 
but civil in Mauleverer to offer his assistance in those little 
attentions preparatory to female departure from balls. He 
hesitated for a moment. “It keeps one so long in those 
cursed thorough draughts,” thought he, shivering. “Besides, 
it is just possible that I may not marry her, and it is no good 
risking a cold (above all, at the beginning of winter) for 
nothing!” Fraught with this prudential policy, Mauleverer 
then resigned Lucy to her father, and murmuring in her ear 
that “her displeasure made him the most wretched of men,” 
concluded his adieu by a bow penitentially graceful. 

About five minutes afterwards, he himself withdrew. As 
he was wrapping his corporeal treasure in his roquelaire of 


284 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


sables, previous to immersing Limself in his chair, he had the 
mortification of seeing Lucy, who with her father, from some 
cause or other, had been delayed in the hall, handed to the 
carriage by Captain Clifford. Had the earl watched more 
narrowly than in the anxious cares due to himself he was 
enabled to do, he would, to his consolation, have noted that 
Lucy gave her hand with an averted and cool air, and that 
Clifford’s expressive features bore rather the aspect of morti- 
fication than triumph. 

He did not, however, see more than the action ; and as he 
was borne homeward with his flambeaux and footmen preced- 
ing him, and the watchful Smoothson by the side of the little 
vehicle, he muttered his determination of writing by the very 
next post to Brandon all his anger for Lucy and all his jeal- 
ousy of her evident lover. 

While this doughty resolve was animating the great soul of 
Mauleverer, Lucy reached her own room, bolted the door, and 
throwing herself on her bed, burst into a long and bitter par- 
oxysm of tears. So unusual were such visitors to her happy 
and buoyant temper, that there was something almost alarm- 
ing in the earnestness and obstinacy with which she now 
wept. 

“ What ! ” said she, bitterly, “ have I placed my affections 
upon a man of uncertain character, and is my infatuation so 
clear that an acquaintance dare hint at its imprudence? And 
yet his manner — his tone! No, no, there can be no reason 
for shame in loving him ! ” And as she said this, her heart 
smote her for the coldness of her manner towards Clifford on 
his taking leave of her for the evening. “ Am I,” she thought, 
weeping yet more vehemently than before, — “am I so worldly, 
so base, as to feel altered towards him the moment I hear a 
syllable breathed against his name? Should I not, on the 
contrary, have clung to his image with a greater love, if he 
were attacked by others? But iny father, my dear father, and 
my kind, prudent uncle, — something is due to them; and they 
would break their hearts if I loved one whom they deemed 
unworthy. Why should I not summon courage, and tell him 
of the suspicions respecting him? One candid word would 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


235 


dispel them. Surely it would be but kind in me towards him, 
to give him an opportunity of disproving all false and dishon- 
ouring conjectures. And why this reserve, when so often, by 
look and hint, if not by open avowal, he has declared that he 
loves me, and knows — he must know — that he is not indif- 
ferent to me? Why does he never speak of his parents, his 
relations, his home?” 

And Lucy, as she asked this question, drew from a bosom 
whose hue and shape might have rivalled hers who won 
Cymon to be wise , 1 a drawing which she herself had secretly 
made of her lover, and which, though inartificial ly and even 
rudely done, yet had caught the inspiration of memory, and 
breathed the very features and air that were stamped already 
ineffaceably upon a heart too holy for so sullied an idol. She 
gazed upon the portrait as if it could answer her question of 
the original ; and as she looked and looked, her tears slowly 
ceased, and her innocent countenance relapsed gradually into 
its usual and eloquent serenity. Never, perhaps, could Lucy’s 
own portrait have been taken at a more favourable moment. 
The unconscious grace of her attitude; her dress loosened; the 
modest and youthful voluptuousness of her beauty; the tender 
cheek to which the virgin bloom, vanished for a while, was 
now all glowingly returning; the little white soft hand on 
which that cheek leaned, while the other contained the pic- 
ture upon which her eyes fed; the half smile just conjured to 
her full, red, dewy lips, and gone the moment after, yet 
again restored, — all made a picture of such enchanting love- 
liness that we question whether Shakspeare himself could 
have fancied an earthly shape more meet to embody the 
vision of a Miranda or a Viola. The quiet and maiden neat- 
ness of the apartment gave effect to the charm ; and there was 
a poetry even in the snowy furniture of the bed, the shutters 
partly unclosed and admitting a glimpse of the silver moon, 
and the solitary lamp just contending with the purer ray of 
the skies, and so throwing a mixed and softened light around 
the chamber. 

She was yet gazing on the drawing, when a faint stream of 
1 See Dryden’s poem of “Cymon and Iphigenia.” 


236 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


music stole through the air beneath her window, and it grad- 
ually rose till the sound of a guitar became distinct and clear, 
suiting with, not disturbing, the moonlit stillness of the night. 
The gallantry and romance of a former day, though at the time 
of our story subsiding, were not quite dispelled ; and nightly 
serenades under the casements of a distinguished beauty were 
by no means of unfrequent occurrence. But Lucy, as the 
music floated upon her ear, blushed deeper and deeper, as if 
it had a dearer source to her heart than ordinary gallantry ; 
and raising herself on one arm from her incumbent position, 
she leaned forward to catch the sound with a greater and 
more unerring certainty. 

After a prelude of some moments a clear and sweet voice 
accompanied the instrument, and the words of the song were 
as follows : — 


CLIFFORD’S SERENADE. 

There is a world where every night 
My spirit meets and walks with thine ; 

And hopes I dare not tell thee light, 

Like stars of Love, that world of mine ! 

Sleep ! — to the waking world my heart 
Hath now, methinks, a stranger grown ; 

Ah, sleep ! that I may feel thou art 
Within one world that is my own. 

As the music died away, Lucy sank back once more, and 
the drawing which she held was pressed (with cheeks glowing, 
though unseen, at the act) to her lips. And though the char- 
acter of her lover was uncleared, though she herself had come 
to no distinct resolution even to inform him of the rumours 
against his name, yet so easily restored was her trust in him, 
and so soothing the very thought of his vigilance and his love^ 
that before an hour had passed, her eyes were closed in sleep. 
The drawing was laid, as a spell against grief, under her 
pillow; and in her dreams she murmured his name, and un- 
conscious of reality and the future, smiled tenderly as she 
did so! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


237 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Come, the plot thickens ! and another fold 
Of the warm cloak of mystery wraps us around. 

And for their loves ? 

Behold the seal is on them ! 

Tanner of Tyburn. 


We must not suppose that Clifford’s manner and tone were 
towards Lucy Brandon such as they seemed to others. Love 
refines every roughness ; and that truth which nurtures ten' 
derness is never barren of grace. Whatever the habits and 
comrades of Clifford’s life, he had at heart many good and 
generous qualities. They were not often perceptible, it is 
true, — first, because he was of a gay and reckless turn ; 
sceondly, because he was not easily affected by any external 
circumstances; and thirdly, because he had the policy to 
affect among his comrades only such qualities as were likely 
to give him influence with them. Still, however, his better 
genius broke out whenever an opportunity presented itself. 
Though no “Corsair,” romantic and unreal, an Ossianic shadow 
becoming more vast in proportion as it recedes from substance ; 
though no grandly-imagined lie to the fair proportions of 
human nature, but an erring man in a very prosaic and 
homely world, — Clifford still mingled a certain generosity 
and chivalric spirit of enterprise even with the practices of 
his profession. Although the name of Lovett, by which he 
was chiefly known, was one peculiarly distinguished in the 
annals of the adventurous, it had never been coupled with 
rumours of cruelty or outrage; and it was often associated 
with anecdotes of courage, courtesy, good humour, or forbear- 
ance. He was one whom a real love was peculiarly calcu- 
lated to soften and to redeem. The boldness, the candour, 
the unselfishness of his temper, were components of nature 


238 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


upon which affection invariably takes a strong and deep hold. 
Besides, Clifford was of an eager and aspiring turn ; and the 
same temper and abilities which had in a very few years 
raised him in influence and popularity far above all the chiv- 
alric band with whom he was connected, when once inflamed 
and elevated by a higher passion, were likely to arouse his 
ambition from the level of his present pursuits, and reform 
him, ere too late, into a useful, nay, even an honourable mem- 
ber of society. We trust that the reader has already perceived 
that, despite his early circumstances, his manner and address 
were not such as to unfit him for a lady’s love. The compar- 
ative refinement of his exterior is easy of explanation, for he 
possessed a natural and inborn gentility, a quick turn for 
observation, a ready sense both of the ridiculous and the 
graceful; and these are materials which are soon and lightly 
wrought from coarseness into polish. He had been thrown, 
too, among the leaders and heroes of his band; many not abso- 
lutely low in birth, nor debased in habit. He had associated 
with the Barringtons of the day, — gentlemen who were 
admired at Ranelagh, and made speeches worthy of Cicero, 
when they were summoned to trial. He had played his part 
in public places ; and as Tomlinson was wont to say after his 
classic fashion, “the triumphs accomplished in the field had 
been planned in the ball-room.” In short, he was one of those 
accomplished and elegant highwaymen of whom we yet read 
wonders, and by whom it would have been delightful to have 
been robbed : and the aptness of intellect which grew into wit 
with his friends, softened into sentiment with his mistress. 
There is something, too, in beauty (and Clifford’s person, as 
we have before said, was possessed of even uncommon attrac- 
tions) which lifts a beggar into nobility; and there was a dis- 
tinction in his gait and look which supplied the air of rank 
and the tone of courts. Men, indeed, skilled like Mauleverer 
in the subtleties of manner, might perhaps have easily de- 
tected in him the want of that indescribable essence possessed 
only by persons reared in good society; but that want being 
shared by so many persons of indisputable birth and fortune, 
conveyed no particular reproach. To Lucy, indeed, brought 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


239 


up in seclusion, and seeing at Warlock none calculated to 
refine her taste in the fashion of an air or phrase to a very 
fastidious standard of perfection, this want was perfectly 
imperceptible ; she remarked in her lover only a figure every- 
where unequalled, an eye always eloquent with admiration, a 
step from which grace could never be divorced, a voice that 
spoke in a silver key, and uttered flatteries delicate in thought 
and poetical in word; even a certain originality of mind, 
remark, and character, occasionally approaching to the bizarre , 
yet sometimes also to the elevated, possessed a charm for the 
imagination of a young and not unenthusiastic female, and 
contrasted favourably, rather than the reverse, with the dull 
insipidity of those she ordinarily saw. Nor are we sure that 
the mystery thrown about him, irksome as it was to her, 
and discreditable as it appeared to others, was altogether 
ineffectual in increasing her love for the adventurer; and 
thus Fate, which transmutes in her magic crucible all oppos- 
ing metals into that one which she is desirous to produce, 
swelled the wealth of an ill-placed and ominous passion by 
the very circumstances which should have counteracted and 
destroyed it. 

We are willing, by what we have said, not to defend 
Clifford, but to redeem Lucy in the opinion of our readers 
for loving so unwisely; and when they remember her youth, 
her education, her privation of a mother, of all female friend- 
ship, even of the vigilant and unrelaxing care of some pro- 
tector of the opposite sex, we do not think that what was so 
natural will be considered by any inexcusable. 

Mauleverer woke the morning after the ball in better health 
than usual, and consequently more in love than ever. Accord- 
ing to his resolution the night before, he sat down to write a 
long letter to William Brandon: it was amusing and witty as 
usual ; but the wily nobleman succeeded, under the cover of 
wit, in conveying to Brandon’s mind a serious apprehension 
lest his cherished matrimonial project should altogether fail. 
The account of Lucy and of Captain Clifford contained in the 
epistle instilled, indeed, a double portion of sourness into 
the professionally acrid mind of the lawyer; and as it so 


240 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


happened that he read the letter just before attending the 
court upon a case in which he was counsel to the crown, 
the witnesses on the opposite side of the question felt the 
full effects of the barrister’s ill humour. The case was one 
in which the defendant had been engaged in swindling tran- 
sactions to a very large amount; and among his agents and 
assistants was a person of the very lowest orders, but who, 
seemingly enjoying large connections, and possessing natural 
acuteness and address, appeared to have been of great use in 
receiving and disposing of such goods as were fraudulently 
obtained. As a witness against the latter person appeared a 
pawnbroker, who produced certain articles that had been 
pledged to him at different times by this humble agent. 
Now, Brandon, in examining the guilty go-between, became the 
more terribly severe in proportion as the man evinced that 
semblance of unconscious stolidity which the lower orders can 
so ingeniously assume, and which is so peculiarly adapted to 
enrage and to baffle the gentlemen of the bar. At length, 
Brandon entirely subduing and quelling the stubborn hypoc- 
risy of the culprit, the man turned towards him a look between 
wrath and beseechingness, muttering, — 

“ Aha ! if so be, Counsellor Prandon, you knew vat I knows, 
you vould not go for to bully I so ! ” 

“ And pray, my good fellow, what is it that you know that 
should make me treat you as if I thought you an honest 
man?” 

The witness had now relapsed into sullenness, and only 
answered by a sort of grunt. Brandon, who knew well how 
to sting a witness into communicativeness, continued his ques- 
tioning till the witness, re-aroused into anger, and it may be 
into indiscretion, said in a low voice, — 

“Hax Mr. Swoppem the pawnbroker what I sold ’im on the 
15th hof February, exactly twenty-three yearn ago.” 

Brandon started back, his lips grew white, he clenched his 
hands with a convulsive spasm; and while all his features 
seemed distorted with an earnest yet fearful intensity of 
expectation, he poured forth a volley of questions, so incoher- 
ent and so irrelevant that he was immediately called to order 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


241 


by liis learned brother on the opposite side. Nothing further 
could be extracted from the witness. The pawnbroker was 
resummoned : he appeared somewhat disconcerted by an appeal 
to his memory so far back as twenty-three years; but after 
taking some time to consider, during which the agitation of 
the usually cold and possessed Brandon was remarkable to all 
the court, he declared that he recollected no transaction what- 
soever with the witness at that time. In vain were all 
Brandon’s efforts to procure a more elucidatory answer. The 
pawnbroker was impenetrable, and the lawyer was com- 
pelled reluctantly to dismiss him. The moment the witness 
left the box, Brandon sank into a gloomy abstraction, — he 
seemed quite to forget the business and the duties of the 
court; and so negligently did he continue to conclude the 
case, so purposeless was the rest of his examination and 
cross-examination, that the cause was entirely marred, and 
a verdict “Not guilty ” returned by the jury. 

The moment he left the court, Brandon repaired to the 
pawnbroker’s; and after a conversation with Mr. Swoppem, 
in which he satisfied that honest tradesman that his object 
was rather to reward than intimidate, Swoppem confessed 
that twenty-three years ago the witness had met him at a 
public-house in Devereux Court, in company with two other 
men, and sold him several articles in plate, ornaments, etc. 
The great bulk of these articles had, of course, long left the 
pawnbroker’s abode; but he still thought a stray trinket or 
two, not of sufficient worth to be reset or remodelled, nor of 
sufficient fashion to find a ready sale, lingered in his drawers. 
Eagerly, and with trembling hands, did Brandon toss over the 
motley contents of the mahogany reservoirs which the pawn- 
broker now submitted to his scrutiny. Nothing on earth is 
so melancholy a prospect as a pawnbroker’s drawer! Those 
little, quaint, valueless ornaments, — those true-lovers’ knots, 
those oval lockets, those battered rings, girdled by initials, or 
some brief inscription of regard or of grief, — what tales of 
past affections, hopes, and sorrows do they not tell! But no 
sentiment of so general a sort ever saddened the hard mind of 
William Brandon, and now less than at any time could such 

16 


242 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


reflections have occurred to him. Impatiently he threw on 
the table, one after another, the baubles once hoarded per- 
chance with the tenderest respect, till at length his eyes 
sparkled, and with a nervous gripe he seized upon an old 
ring which was inscribed with letters, and circled a heart 
containing hair. The inscription was simply, “W. B. to 
Julia.” Strange and dark was the expression that settled 
on Brandon’s face as he regarded this seemingly worthless 
trinket. After a moment’s gaze, he uttered an inarticulate 
exclamation, and thrusting it into his pocket, renewed his 
search. He found one or two other trifles of a similar nature; 
one was an ill-done miniature set in silver, and bearing at the 
back sundry half-effaced letters, which Brandon construed 
at once (though no other eye could) into “ Sir John Brandon, 
1635, iEtat. 28 ; ” the other was a seal stamped with the noble 
crest of the house of Brandon, ‘A bull’s head; ducally crowned 
and armed, Or.’ As soon as Brandon had possessed himself 
of these treasures, and arrived at the conviction that the place 
held no more, he assured the conscientious Swoppem of his 
regard for that person’s safety, rewarded him munificently, 
and went his way to Bow Street for a warrant against the 
witness who had commended him to the pawnbroker. On 
his road thither, a new resolution occurred to him. “Why 
make all public,” he muttered to himself, “if it can be 
avoided? and it may be avoided!” He paused a moment, 
then retraced his way to the pawnbroker’s, and, after a brief 
mandate to Mr. Swoppem, returned home. In the course of 
the same evening the witness we refer to was brought to the 
lawyer’s house by Mr. Swoppem, and there held a long and 
private conversation with Brandon; the result of this seemed 
a compact to their mutual satisfaction, for the man went away 
safe, with a heavy purse and a light heart, although sundry 
shades and misgivings did certainly ever and anon cross the 
latter; while Brandon flung himself back in his seat with 
the triumphant air of one who has accomplished some great 
measure, and his dark face betrayed in every feature a joy- 
ousness and hope which were unfrequent guests, it must be 
owned, either to his countenance or his heart. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


243 


So good a man of business, however, was William Brandon 
that he allowed not the event of that day to defer beyond the 
night his attention to his designs for the aggrandizement of 
his niece and house. By daybreak the next morning he had 
written to Lord Mauleverer, to his brother, and to Lucy. To 
the last his letter, couched in all the anxiety of fondness and 
the caution of affectionate experience, was well calculated to 
occasion that mingled shame and soreness which the wary 
lawyer rightly judged would be the most effectual enemy to 
an incipient passion. “I have accidentally heard," he wrote, 
“ from a friend of mine, just arrived from Bath, of the glar- 
ing attentions paid to you by a Captain Clifford; I will not, 
my dearest niece, wound you by repeating what also I heard 
of your manner in receiving them. I know the ill-nature and 
the envy of the world; and I do not for a moment imagine 
that my Lucy, of whom I am so justly proud, would counte- 
nance, from a petty coquetry, the advances of one whom she 
could never marry, or evince to any suitor partiality unknown 
to her relations, and certainly placed in a quarter which could 
never receive their approbation. I do not credit the reports 
of the idle, my dear niece; but if I discredit, you must not 
slight them. I call upon your prudence, your delicacy, your 
discretion, your sense of right, at once and effectually to put 
a stop to all impertinent rumours: dance with this young man 
no more; do not let him be of your party in any place of 
amusement, public or private; avoid even seeing him if you 
are able, and throw in your manner towards him that decided 
coldness which the world cannot mistake." Much more did 
the skilful uncle write, but all to the same purpose, and for 
the furtherance of the same design. His letter to his brother 
was not less artful. He told him at once that Lucy’s prefer- 
ence of the suit of a handsome fortune-hunter was the public 
talk, and besought him to lose not a moment in quelling the 
rumour. “You may do so easily," he wrote, “by avoiding 
the young man ; and should he be very importunate, return at 
once to Warlock. Your daughter’s welfare must be dearer 
to you than anything." 

To Mauleverer, Brandon replied by a letter which turned 


244 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


first on public matters, and then slid carelessly into the sub- 
ject of the earPs information. 

Among the admonitions which he ventured to give Maul- 
everer, he dwelt, not without reason, on the want of tact 
displayed by the earl in not manifesting that pomp and show 
which his station in life enabled him to do. “ Remember, ” 
he urged, “you are not among your equals, by whom unneces- 
sary parade begins to be considered an ostentatious vulgarity. 
The surest method of dazzling our inferiors is by splendour, 
not taste. All young persons — all women in particular — are 
caught by show, and enamoured of magnificence. Assume a 
greater state, and you will be more talked of; and notoriety 
wins a woman’s heart more than beauty or youth. You have, 
forgive me, played the boy too long; a certain dignity be- 
comes your manhood; women will not respect you if you 
suffer yourself to become ‘ stale and cheap to vulgar com- 
pany.’ You are like a man who has fifty advantages, and 
uses only one of them to gain his point, when you rely on 
your conversation and your manner, and throw away the 
resources of your wealth and your station. Any private 
gentleman may be amiable and witty; but any private gen- 
tleman cannot call to his aid the Aladdin’s lamp possessed in 
England by a wealthy peer. Look to this, my dear lord| 
Lucy at heart is vain, or she is not a woman. Dazzle her, 
then, — dazzle ! Love may be blind, but it must be made so 
by excess of light. You have a country-house within a few 
miles of Bath. Why not take up your abode there instead of 
in a paltry lodging in the town? Give sumptuous entertain- 
ments, — make it necessary for all the world to attend them, 
— exclude, of course, this Captain Clifford; you will then meet 
Lucy without a rival. At present, excepting only your title, 
you fight on a level ground with this adventurer, instead of an 
eminence from which you could in an instant sweep him away. 
Nay, he is stronger than you; he has the opportunities 
afforded by a partnership in balls where you cannot appear 
to advantage ; he is, you say, in the first bloom of youth, — 
he is handsome. Reflect ! — your destiny, so far as Lucy is 
concerned, is in your hands. I turn to other subjects,” etc. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


245 


As Brandon re-read, ere lie signed, this last letter, a bitter 
smile sat on his harsh yet handsome features. “If,” said he, 
mentally, “ I can effect this object, — if Mauleverer does 
marry this girl, — why so much the better that she has an- 
other, a fairer, and a more welcome lover. By the great 
principle of scorn within me, which has enabled me to sneer 
at what weaker minds adore, and make a footstool of that 
worldly honour which fools set up as a throne, it would be to 
me more sweet than fame — ay, or even than power — to see 
this fine-spun lord a gibe in the mouths of men, — a cuckold, 
a cuckold ! ” and as he said the last word Brandon laughed 
outright. “And he thinks, too,” added he, “that he is sure of 
my fortune; otherwise, perhaps, he, the goldsmith’s descend- 
ant, would not dignify our house with his proposals; but he 
may err there, — he may err there; ” and, finishing his solilo- 
quy, Brandon finished also his letter by — “Adieu, my dear 
lord, your most affectionate friend ” ! 

It is not difficult to conjecture the effect produced upon 
Lucy by Brandon’s letter. It made her wretched; she re- 
fused for days to go out; she shut herself up in her apart- 
ment, and consumed the time in tears and struggles with her 
own heart. Sometimes what she conceived to be her duty 
conquered, and she resolved to forswear her lover; but the 
night undid the labour of the day, — for at night, every night, 
the sound of her lover’s voice, accompanied by music, melted 
away her resolution, and made her once more all tenderness 
and trust. The words, too, sung under her window were 
especially suited to affect her; they breathed a melancholy 
which touched her the more from its harmony with her own 
thoughts. One while they complained of absence, at another 
they hinted at neglect; but there was always in them a tone 
of humiliation, not reproach ; they bespoke a sense of unworth- 
iness in the lover, and confessed that even the love was a 
crime: and in proportion as they owned the want of desert 
did Lucy more firmly cling to the belief that her lover was 
deserving. 

The old squire was greatly disconcerted by his brother’s 
letter. Though impressed with the idea of self-consequence, 


246 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


and the love of tolerably pure blood, common to most country 
squires, he was by no means ambitious for his daughter. On 
the contrary, the same feeling which at Warlock had made 
him choose his companions among the inferior gentry made 
him averse to the thought of a son-in-law from the peerage. 
In spite of Mauleverer’s good-nature, the very ease of the 
earl annoyed him, and he never felt at home in his society. 
To Clifford he had a great liking; and having convinced him- 
self that there was nothing to suspect in the young gentleman, 
he saw no earthly reason why so agreeable a companion should 
not be an agreeable son-in-law. “If he be poor, 5 ’ thought 
the squire, “ though he does not seem so, Lucy is rich ! ” 
And this truism appeared to him to answer every objec- 
tion. Nevertheless, William Brandon possessed a remark- 
able influence over the weaker mind of his brother; and the 
squire, though with great reluctance, resolved to adopt his 
advice. He shut his doors against Clifford, and when he met 
him in the streets, instead of greeting him with his wonted 
cordiality, he passed him with a hasty “Good day, Captain! ” 
which, after the first day or two, merged into a distant bow. 
Whenever very good-hearted people are rude, and unjustly so, 
the rudeness is in the extreme. The squire felt it so irksome 
to be less familiar than heretofore with Clifford, that his only 
remaining desire was now to drop him altogether; and to this 
consummation of acquaintance the gradually cooling salute 
appeared rapidly approaching. Meanwhile Clifford, unable 
to see Lucy, shunned by her father, and obtaining in answer 
to all inquiry rude looks from the footman, whom nothing but 
the most resolute command over his muscles prevented him 
from knocking down, began to feel perhaps, for the first time 
in his life, that an equivocal character is at least no equivocal 
misfortune. To add to his distress, “the earnings of his pre- 
vious industry ” — we use the expression cherished by the wise 
Tomlinson — waxed gradually less and less beneath the ex- 
penses of Bath; and the murmuring voices of his two com- 
rades began already to reproach their chief for his inglorious 
idleness, and to hint at the necessity of a speedy exertion. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


247 


CHAPTER XX. 

WhacJcum. Look you there, now! Well, all Europe cannot show a knot 
of finer wits and braver gentlemen. 

Dingboy. Faith, they are pretty smart men. 

Shadwell: Scourers. 

The world of Bath was of a sudden delighted by the intelli- 
gence that Lord Mauleverer had gone to Beauvale (the beau- 
tiful seat possessed by that nobleman in the neighbourhood 
of Bath), with the intention of there holding a series of sump- 
tuous entertainments. 

The first persons to whom the gay earl announced his 
“hospitable purpose” were Mr. and Miss Brandon; he called 
at their house, and declared his resolution of not leaving it 
till Lucy (who was in her own room) consented to gratify him 
with an interview, and a promise to be the queen of his pur- 
posed festival. Lucy, teased by her father, descended to the 
drawing-room, spiritless and pale ; and the earl, struck by the 
alteration of her appearance, took her hand, and made his 
inquiries with so interesting and feeling a semblance of kind- 
ness as prepossessed the father for the first time in his favour, 
and touched even the daughter. So earnest, too, was his re- 
quest that she would honour his festivities with her presence, 
and with so skilful a flattery was it conveyed, that the squire 
undertook to promise the favour in her name ; and when the 
earl, declaring he was not contented with that promise from 
another, appealed to Lucy herself, her denial was soon melted 
into a positive though a reluctant assent. 

Delighted with his success, and more struck with Lucy’s 
loveliness, refined as it was by her paleness, than he had ever 
been before, Mauleverer left the house, and calculated, with 
greater accuracy than he had hitherto done, the probable for- 
tune Lucy would derive from her uncle. 


248 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


No sooner were the cards issued for Lord Mauleverer’s 
fete than nothing else was talked of among the circles which 
at Bath people were pleased to term “the World. ” 

But in the interim caps are making, and talk flowing, at 
Bath; and when it was found that Lord Mauleverer — the 
good-natured Lord Mauleverer, the obliging Lord Mauleverer 
— was really going to be exclusive, and out of a thousand 
acquaintances to select only eight hundred, it is amazing how 
his popularity deepened into respect. Now, then, came anx- 
iety and triumph ; she who was asked turned her back upon 
her who was not, — old friendships dissolved, — Independ- 
ence wrote letters for a ticket, — and, as England is the 
freest country in the world, all the Mistresses Hodges 
and Snodges begged to take the liberty of bringing their 
youngest daughters. 

Leaving the enviable Mauleverer, — the god-like occasion 
of so much happiness and woe, triumph and dejection, — 
ascend with us, 0 reader, into those elegant apartments over 
the hairdresser’s shop, tenanted by Mr. Edward Pepper and 
Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. The time was that of evening; 
Captain Clifford had been dining with his two friends; the 
cloth was removed, and conversation was flowing over a table 
graced by two bottles of port, a bowl of punch for Mr. Pep- 
per’s especial discussion, two dishes of filberts, another of 
devilled biscuits, and a fourth of three Pomarian crudities, 
which nobody touched. 

The hearth was swept clean, the fire burned high and clear, 
the curtains were let down, and the light excluded. Our three 
adventurers and their rooms seemed the picture of comfort. 
So thought Mr. Pepper; for, glancing round the chamber and 
putting his feet upon the fender, he said, — 

“Were my portrait to be taken, gentlemen, it is just as I 
am now that I would be drawn! ” 

“And,” said Tomlinson, cracking his filberts, — Tomlinson 
was fond of filberts, — “ were I to choose a home, it is in such 
a home as this that I would be always quartered.” 

“Ah, gentlemen,” said Clifford, who had been for some time 
silent, “ it is more than probable that both your wishes may 


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PAUL CLIFFORD. 


249 


be beard, and that ye may be drawn, quartered, and some- 
thing else, too, in the very place of your desert ! ” 

“Well,” said Tomlinson, smiling gently, “I am happy to 
hear you jest again, Captain, though it be at our expense.” 

“Expense!” echoed Ned; “ay, there’s the rub! Who the 
deuce is to pay the expense of our dinner?” 

“And our dinners for the last week?” added Tomlinson. 
“ This empty nut looks ominous ; it certainly has one grand 
feature strikingly resembling my pockets.” 

“Heigho!” sighed Long Ned, turning his waistcoat com- 
modities inside-out with a significant gesture, while the 
accomplished Tomlinson, who was fond of plaintive poetry, 
pointed to the disconsolate vacua, and exclaimed, — 

“ E’en while Fashion’s brightest arts decoy, 

The heart desponding asks if this be joy ! ” 

“In truth, gentlemen,” added he, solemnly depositing his 
nut-crackers on the table, and laying, as was his wont when 
about to be luminous, his right finger on his sinister palm, — 
“ in truth, gentlemen, affairs are growing serious with us, and 
it becomes necessary forthwith to devise some safe means of 
procuring a decent competence.” 

“I am dunned confoundedly,” cried Ned. 

“And,” continued Tomlinson, “no person of delicacy likes 
to be subjected to the importunity of vulgar creditors; we 
must therefore raise money for the liquidation of our debts. 
Captain Lovett, or Clifford, whichever you be styled, we call 
upon you to assist us in so praiseworthy a purpose.” 

Clifford turned his eyes first on one and then on the other, 
but made no answer. 

“Imprimis,” said Tomlinson, “let us each produce our stock 
in hand ; for my part, I am free to confess — for what shame 
is there in that poverty which our exertions are about to 
relieve? — that I have only two guineas four shillings and 
threepence halfpenny ! ” 

“And I,” said Long Ned, taking a China ornament from 
the chimney-piece, and emptying its contents in his hand, 
“ am in a still more pitiful condition. See, I have only three 


250 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


shillings and a bad guinea. I gave the guinea to the waiter 
at the White Hart yesterday; the dog brought it back to me 
to-day, and I was forced to change it with my last shiner. 
Plague take the thing! I bought it of a Jew for four shil- 
lings, and have lost one pound five by the bargain.” 

‘‘Fortune frustrates our wisest schemes,” rejoined the 
moralizing Augustus. “Captain, will you produce the scanty 
wrecks of your wealth?” 

Clifford, still silent, threw a purse on the table. Augustus 
carefully emptied it, and counted out five guineas ; an expres- 
sion of grave surprise settled on Tomlinson’s contemplative 
brow, and extending the coins towards Clifford, he said in a 
melancholy tone, — 

“ All your pretty ones'? 

Did you say all ? ” 

A look from Clifford answered the interesting interrogatory. 

“These, then,” said Tomlinson, collecting in his hand the 
commonwealth, — “these, then, are all our remaining treas- 
ures!” As he spoke, he jingled the coins mournfully in his 
palm, and gazing upon them with a parental air, exclaimed, — 

“ Alas ! regardless of their doom, the little victims play ! ” 

“Oh, d — it!” said Ned, “no sentiment! Let us come to 
business at once. To tell you the truth, I, for one, am tired 
of this heiress -hunting, and a man may spend a fortune in the 
chase before he can win one.” 

“You despair then, positively, of the widow you have 
courted so long?” asked Tomlinson. 

“Utterly,” rejoined Ned, whose addresses had been limited 
solely to the dames of the middling class, and who had imag- 
ined himself at one time, as he punningly expressed it, sure 
of a dear rib from Cheapside , — “utterly; she was very civil 
to me at first, but when I proposed, asked me, with a blush, 
for my ‘references.’ ‘References?’ said I; ‘why, I want 
the place of your husband, my charmer, not your footman! ’ 
The dame was inexorable, said she could not take me without 
a character, but hinted that I might be the lover instead of 
the bridegroom; and when I scorned the suggestion, and 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


251 


pressed for the parson, she told me point-blank, with her 
unlucky city pronunciation, ‘ that she would never accompany 
me to the /miter ! 9 ” 

“Ha, ha, ha!” cried Tomlinson, laughing. “One can 
scarcely blame the good lady for that. Love rarely brooks 
such permanent ties. But have you no other lady in your 
eye? ” 

“Not for matrimony, — all roads but those to the church! ” 

While this dissolute pair were thus conversing, Clifford, 
leaning against the wainscot, listened to them with a sick and 
bitter feeling of degradation, which till of late days had been 
a stranger to his breast. He was at length aroused from his 
silence by Ned, who, bending forward and placing his hand 
upon Clifford’s knee, said abruptly, — 

“In short, Captain, you must lead us once more to glory. 
We have still our horses, and I keep my mask in my pocket- 
book, together with my comb. Let us take the road to-morrow 
night, dash across the country towards Salisbury, and after a 
short visit in that neighbourhood to a band of old friends of 
mine, —bold fellows, who would have stopped the devil him- 
self when he was at work upon Stonehenge, — make a tour by 
Reading and Henley and end by a plunge into London.” 

“You have spoken well, Ned!” said Tomlinson, approv- 
ingly. “Now, noble captain, your opinion?” 

“Messieurs,” answered Clifford, “I highly approve of your 
intended excursion, and I only regret that I cannot be your 
companion.” 

“Not! and why?” cried Mr. Pepper, amazed. 

“ Because I have business here that renders it impossible ; 
perhaps, before long, I may join you in London.” 

“Naj",” said Tomlinson, “there is no necessity for our going 
to London, if you wish to remain here; nor need we at present 
recur to so desperate an expedient as the road, — a little quiet 
business at Bath will answer our purpose; and for my part, as 
you well know, I love exerting my wits in some scheme more 
worthy of them than the highway, — a profession meeter for 
a bully than a man of genius. Let us then, Captain, plan a 
project of enrichment on the property of some credulous 


252 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


tradesman! Why have recourse to rough measures so long 
as we can find easy fools?” 

Clifford shook his head. “I will own to you fairly,” said 
he, “that I cannot at present take a share in your exploits; 
nay, as your chief I must lay my positive commands on you 
to refrain from all exercise of your talents at Bath. Rob, if 
you please: the world is before you; but this city is sacred.” 

“Body o’ me! ” cried Ned, colouring, “but this is too good. 
I will not be dictated to in this manner.” 

“But, sir,” answered Clifford, who had learned in his oli- 
garchical profession the way to command, — “ but, sir, you 
shall, or if you mutiny you leave our body, and then will the 
hangman have no petty chance of your own. Come, come! 
ingrate as you are, what would you be without me? How 
many times have I already saved that long carcass of thine 
from the rope, and now would you have the baseness to rebel? 
Out on you ! ” 

Though Mr. Pepper was still wroth, he bit his lip in 
moody silence, and suffered not his passion to have its way; 
while Clifford, rising, after a short pause continued: “Look 
you, Mr. Pepper, you know my commands; consider them 
peremptory. I wish you success and plenty! Farewell, 
gentlemen ! ” 

“Do you leave us already?” cried Tomlinson. “You are 
offended.” 

“Surely not!” answered Clifford, retreating to the door. 
“ But an engagement elsewhere, you know ! ” 

“Ay, I take you,” said Tomlinson, following Clifford out 
of the room, and shutting the door after him. “ Ay, I take 
you!” added he, in a whisper, as he arrested Clifford at the 
head of the stairs. “ But tell me, how do you get on with the 
heiress?” 

Smothering that sensation at his heart which made Clifford, 
reckless as he was, enraged and ashamed, whenever through 
the lips of his comrades there issued any allusion to Lucy 
Brandon, the chief replied: “I fear, Tomlinson, that I am 
already suspected by the old squire! All of a sudden he 
avoids me, shuts his door against me; Miss Brandon goes 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 253 

nowhere, and even if she did, what could I expect from her 
after this sudden change in the father?” 

Tomlinson looked blank and disconcerted. “But,” said he, 
after a moment’s silence, “why not put a good face on the 
matter, walk up to the squire, and ask him the reason of his 
unkindness? ” 

“Why, look you, my friend; I am bold enough with all 
others, but this girl has made me as bashful as a maid in all 
that relates to herself. Nay, there are moments when I think 
I can conquer all selfish feeling and rejoice for her sake that 
she has escaped me. Could I but see her once more, I could 
— yes ! I feel — I feel I could — resign her forever ! ” 

“ Humph ! ” said Tomlinson ; “ and what is to become of us ? 
Really, my captain, your sense of duty should lead you to 
exert yourself; your friends starve before your eyes, while 
you are shilly-shallying about your mistress. Have you no 
bowels for friendship?” 

“ A truce with this nonsense ! ” said Clifford, angrily. 

“It is sense, — sober sense, — and sadness too,” rejoined 
Tomlinson. “Ned is discontented, our debts are imperious. 
Suppose, now, — just suppose, — that we take a moonlight flit- 
ting from Bath, will that tell well for you whom we leave be- 
hind? Yet this we must do, if you do not devise some method 
of refilling our purses. Either, then, consent to join us in a 
scheme meet for our wants, or pay our debts in this city, or 
fly with us to London, and dismiss all thoughts of that love 
which is so seldom friendly to the projects of ambition.” 

Notwithstanding the manner in which Tomlinson made this 
threefold proposition, Clifford could not but acknowledge the 
sense and justice contained in it; and a glance at the matter 
sufficed to show how. ruinous to his character, and therefore 
to his hopes, would be the flight of his comrades and the 
clamour of their creditors. 

“You speak well, Tomlinson,” said he, hesitating; “and 
yet for the life of me I cannot aid you in any scheme which 
may disgrace us by detection. Nothing can reconcile me to 
the apprehension of Miss Brandon’s discovering who and what 
was her suitor.” 


254 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“I feel for you,” said Tomlinson, “but give me and Pepper 
at least permission to shift for ourselves ; trust to my known 
prudence for finding some method to raise the wind without 
creating a dust; in other words (this cursed Pepper makes 
one so vulgar!), of preying on the public without being 
discovered.” 

“I see no alternative,” answered Clifford, reluctantly; “but 
if possible, be quiet for the present. Bear with me for a few 
days longer, give me only sufficient time once more to see 
Miss Brandon, and I will engage to extricate you from your 
difficulties ! ” 

“Spoken like yourself, frankly and nobly,” replied Tomlin- 
son; “no one has a greater confidence in your genius, once 
exerted, than I have ! ” 

So saying, the pair shook hands and parted. Tomlinson 
rejoined Mr. Pepper. 

“Well, have you settled anything?” quoth the latter. 

“Not exactly; and though Lovett has promised to exert 
himself in a few days, yet, as the poor man is in love, and 
his genius under a cloud, I have little faith in his promises.” 

“And I have none!” said Pepper; “besides, time presses! 
A few days! — a few devils! We are certainly scented here, 
and I walk about like a barrel of beer at Christmas, under 
hourly apprehension of being tapped ! ” 

“It is very strange,” said the philosophic Augustus; “but 
I think there is an instinct in tradesmen by which they can 
tell a rogue at first sight; and I can get (dress I ever so well) 
no more credit with my laundress than my friends the Whigs 
can with the people.” 

“In short, then,” said Ned, “we must recur at once to the 
road; and on the day after to-morrow there will be an excel- 
lent opportunity. The old earl with the hard name gives a 
breakfast, or feast, or some such mummery. I understand 
people will stay till after nightfall; let us watch our oppor- 
tunity, we are famously mounted, and some carriage later 
than the general string may furnish us with all our hearts can 
desire! ” 

“Bravo!” cried Tomlinson, shaking Mr. Pepper heartily 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


255 


by the hand; “I give you joy of your ingenuity, and you may 
trust to me to make our peace afterwards with Lovett. Any 
enterprise that seems to him gallant he is always willing 
enough to forgive; and as he never practises any other branch 
of the profession than that of the road (for which X confess 
that I think him foolish), he will be more ready to look over 
our exploits in that line than in any other more subtle but 
less heroic.” 

“Well, I leave it to you to propitiate the cove or not, as 
you please; and now that we have settled the main point, let 
us finish the lush! ” 

“And,” added Augustus, taking a pack of cards from the 
chimney-piece, “ we can in the mean while have a quiet game 
at cribbage for shillings.” 

“Done!” cried Ned, clearing away the dessert. 

If the redoubted hearts of Mr. Edward Pepper, and that 
Ulysses of robbers, Augustus Tomlinson, beat high as the 
hours brought on Lord Mauleverer’s fete , their leader was not 
without anxiety and expectation for the same event. He was 
uninvited, it is true, to the gay scene; but he had heard in 
public that Miss Brandon, recovered from her late illness, 
was certainly to be there; and Clifford, torn with suspense, 
and eager once more, even if for the last time, to see the only 
person who had ever pierced his soul with a keen sense of his 
errors or crimes, resolved to risk all obstacles and meet her 
at Mauleverer’s. 

“My life,” said he, as he sat alone in his apartment, eying 
the falling embers of his still and lethargic fire, “may soon 
approach its termination; it is, indeed, out of the chances of 
things that I can long escape the doom of my condition; and 
when, as a last hope to raise mysfelf from my desperate state 
into respectability and reform, I came hither, and meditated 
purchasing independence by marriage, I was blind to the 
cursed rascality of the action! Happy, after all, that my 
intentions were directed against one whom I so soon and so 
adoringly learned to love ! Had I wooed one whom I loved 
less, I might not have scrupled to deceive her into marriage. 
As it is, — well, it is idle in me to think thus of my resolu' 


256 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


tion, when I have not even the option to choose; when her 
father, perhaps, has already lifted the veil from my assumed 
dignities, and the daughter already shrinks in horror from my 
name. Yet I will see her! I will look once more upon that 
angel face, I will hear from her own lips the confession of her 
scorn, I will see that bright eye flash hatred upon me, and I 
can then turn once more to my fatal career, and forget that 
I have ever repented that it was begun. Yet, what else could 
have been my alternative? Friendless, homeless, nameless, 
— an orphan, worse than an orphan, — the son of a harlot, my 
father even unknown; yet cursed with early aspirings and 
restlessness, and a half glimmering of knowledge, and an 
entire lust of whatever seemed enterprise, — what wonder 
that I chose anything rather than daily labour and perpetual 
contumely? After all, the fault is in fortune and the world, 
not me ! Oh, Lucy ! had I but been born in your sphere, had 
I but possessed the claim to merit you, what would I not have 
done and. dared and conquered for your sake ! ” 

Such, or similar to these, were the thoughts of Clifford 
during the interval between his resolution of seeing Lucy and 
the time of effecting it. The thoughts were of no pleasing 
though of an exciting nature; nor were they greatly soothed 
by the ingenious occupation of cheating himself into the 
belief that if he was a highwayman, it was altogether the 
fault of the highways. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

Dream. Let me but see her, dear Leontius. 

Humorous Lieutenant . 

Hempskirke. It was the fellow, sure. 

W olfort. What are you, sirrah? 

Beggar’s Bush. 

0 thou divine spirit that burnest in every breast, inciting 
each with the sublime desire to he fine; that stirrest up the 
great to become little in order to seem greater, and that makest 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


257 


a duchess woo insult for a voucher, — thou that delightest m 
so many shapes, multifarious yet the same ; spirit that makest 
the high despicable, and the lord meaner than his valet; 
equally great whether thou cheatest a friend or cuttest a 
father; lacquering all thou touchest with a bright vulgarity 
that thy votaries imagine to be gold, — thou that sendest the 
few to fashionable balls and the many to fashionable novels ; 
that smitest even Genius as well as Folly, making the favour- 
ites of the gods boast an acquaintance they have not with the 
graces of a mushroom peerage rather than the knowledge they 
have of the Muses of an eternal Helicon, — thou that leavest 
in the great ocean of our manners no dry spot for the foot of 
independence; that pallest on the jaded eye with a moving 
and girdling panorama of daubed vilenesses, and fritterest away 
the souls of free-born Britons into a powder smaller than the 
angels which dance in myriads on a pin’s point, — whether, 0 
spirit! thou callest thyself Fashion or Ton or Ambition or 
Vanity or Cringing or Cant or any title equally lofty and sub- 
lime, — would that from thy wings we could gain but a single 
plume ! Fain would we, in fitting strain, describe the festiv- 
ities of that memorable day when the benevolent Lord Maul- 
everer received and blessed the admiring universe of Bath. 

But to be less poetical, as certain writers say, when they 
have been writing nonsense, — but to be less poetical and 
more exact, the morning, though in the depth of winter, was 
bright and clear, and Lord Mauleverer found himself in par- 
ticularly good health. Nothing could be better planned than 
the whole of his arrangements. Unlike those which are ordi- 
narily chosen for the express reason of being as foreign, as 
possible to the nature of our climate, all at Lord Mauleverer’s 
were made suitable to a Greenland atmosphere. The temples 
and summer-houses, interspersed through the grounds, were 
fitted up, some as Esquimaux huts, others as Russian pavil- 
ions; fires were carefully kept up; the musicians Mauleverer 
took care should have as much wine as they pleased; they 
were set skilfully in places where they were unseen, but where 
they could be heard. One or two temporary buildings were 
erected for those who loved dancing; and as Mauleverer, mis* 

17 


258 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


calculating on the principles of human nature, thought gentle- 
men might he averse from ostentatious exhibition, he had 
hired persons to skate minuets and figures of eight upon his 
lakes, for the amusement of those who were fond of skating. 
All people who would be kind enough to dress in strange cos- 
tumes and make odd noises, which they called singing, the 
earl had carefully engaged, and planted in the best places for 
making them look still stranger than they were. 

There was also plenty to eat, and more than plenty to drink. 
Mauleverer knew well that our countrymen and countrywomen, 
whatever be their rank, like to have their spirits exalted. In 
short, the whole dejeuner was so admirably contrived that it 
was probable the guests would not look much more melan- 
choly during the amusements than they would have done had 
they been otherwise engaged at a funeral. 

Lucy and the squire were among the first arrivals. 

Mauleverer, approaching the father and daughter with his 
most courtly manner, insisted on taking the latter under his 
own escort, and being her cicerone through the round of 
preparations. 

As the crowd thickened, and it was observed how gallant 
were the attentions testified towards Lucy by the host, many 
and envious were the whispers of the guests! Those good 
people, naturally angry at the thought that two individuals ' 
should be married, divided themselves into two parties : one 
abused Lucy, and the other Lord Mauleverer; the former 
vituperated her art, the latter his folly. “I thought she 
would play her cards well, deceitful creature ! 99 said the one. 
“January and May,” muttered the other; “the man ’s sixty! ” 

It was noticeable that the party against Lucy was chiefly com- 
posed of ladies, that against Mauleverer of men; that conduct 
must indeed be heinous which draws down the indignation of 
one’s own sex! 

Unconscious of her crimes, Lucy moved along, leaning on 
the arm of the gallant earl, and languidly smiling, with her 
heart far away, at his endeavours to amuse her. There was 
something interesting in the mere contrast of the pair; so 
touching seemed the beauty of the young girl, with her deli- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


259 


cate cheek, maiden form, drooping eyelid, and quiet simplicity 
of air, in comparison to the worldly countenance and artificial 
grace of her companion. 

After some time, when they were in a sequestered part of the 
grounds, Mauleverer, observing that none were near, entered 
a rude hut; and so fascinated was he at that moment by the 
beauty of his guest, and so meet to him seemed the opportu- 
nity of his confession, that ho with difficulty suppressed the 
avowal rising to his lips, and took the more prudent plan of 
first sounding and preparing as it were the way. 

“ I cannot tell you, my dear Miss Brandon,” said he, 
slightly pressing the beautiful hand leaning on his arm, 
“how happy I am to see you the guest — the queen, rather 
— of my house ! Ah ! could the bloom of youth return with 
its feelings ! Time is never so cruel as when, while stealing 
from us the power to please, he leaves us in full vigour the 
unhappy privilege to be charmed ! ” 

Mauleverer expected at least a blushing contradiction to the 
implied application of a sentiment so affectingly expressed: 
he was disappointed. Lucy, less alive than usual to the 
sentimental, or its reverse, scarcely perceived his meaning, 
and answered simply that it was very true. “ This comes of 
being, like my friend Burke, too refined for one’s audience,” 
thought Mauleverer, wincing a little from the unexpected 
reply. “ And yet ! ” he resumed, “ I would not forego my 
power to admire, futile, nay, painful as it is. Even now, 
while I gaze on you, my heart tells me that the pleasure I 
enjoy, it is at your command at once and forever to blight 
into misery; but while it tells me, I gaze on! ” 

Lucy raised her eyes, and something of her natural archness 
played in their expression. 

“I believe, my lord,” said she, moving from the hut, “that 
it would be better to join 3 r our guests : walls have ears ; and 
what would be the gay Lord Mauleverer’s self-reproach if he 
heard again of his fine compliments to — ” 

“ The most charming person in Europe ! ” cried Mauleverer, 
vehemently; and the hand which he before touched he now 
clasped. At that instant Lucy saw opposite to her, half hid 


260 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


by a copse of evergreens, the figure of Clifford. His face, 
which seemed pale and wan, was not directed towards the 
place where she stood, and he evidently did not perceive 
Mauleverer or herself; yet so great was the effect that this 
glimpse of him produced on Lucy, that she trembled violently, 
and, unconsciously uttering a faint cry, snatched her hand 
from Mauleverer. 

The earl started, and catching the expression of her eyes, 
turned instantly towards the spot to which her gaze seemed 
riveted. He had not heard the rustling of the boughs, but he 
saw, with his habitual quickness of remark, that they still 
trembled, as if lately displaced; and he caught through their 
interstices the glimpse of a receding figure. He sprang for- 
ward with an agility very uncommon to his usual movements ; 
but before he gained the copse, every vestige of the intruder 
had vanished. 

What slaves we are to the moment! As Mauleverer turned 
back to rejoin Lucy, who, agitated almost to fainting, leaned 
against the rude wall of the hut, he would as soon have thought 
of flying as of making that generous offer of self, etc., which 
the instant before he had been burning to render Lucy. The 
vain are always sensitively jealous ; and Mauleverer, remem- 
bering Clifford, and Lucy’s blushes in dancing with him, 
instantly accounted for her agitation and its cause. With a 
very grave air he approached the object of his late adoration, 
and requested to know if it were not some abrupt intruder 
that had occasioned her alarm. Lucy, scarcely knowing what 
she said, answered in a low voice that it was, indeed, and 
begged instantly to rejoin her father. Mauleverer offered his 
arm with great dignity; and the pair passed into the fre- 
quented part of the grounds, where Mauleverer once more 
brightened into smiles and courtesy to all around him. 

“ He is certainly accepted ! ” said Mr. Shrewd to Lady 
Simper. 

“ What an immense match for the girl! ” was Lady Simper’s 
reply. 

Amidst the music, the dancing, the throng, the noise, Lucy 
found it easy to recover herself; and disengaging her arm 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


261 


irom Lord Mauleverer, as she perceived her father, she 
rejoined the squire, and remained a patient listener to his 
remarks till late in the noon it became an understood matter 
that people were expected to go into a long room in order to 
eat and drink. Mauleverer, now alive to the duties of his 
situation, and feeling exceedingly angry with Lucy, was more 
reconciled than he otherwise might have been to the etiquette 
which obliged him to select for the object of his hospitable 
cares an old dowager duchess instead of the beauty of the 
fete ; but he took care to point out to the squire the places 
appointed for himself and daughter, which were, though at 
some distance from the earl, under the providence of his vigi- 
lant survey. 

While Mauleverer was deifying the dowager duchess, and 
refreshing his spirits with a chicken and a medicinal glass of 
madeira, the conversation near Lucy turned, to her infinite 
dismay, upon Clifford. Some one had seen him in the 
grounds, booted and in a riding undress (in that day people 
seldom rode and danced in the same conformation of coat) ; 
and as Mauleverer was a precise person about those little 
matters of etiquette, this negligence of Clifford’s made quite 
a subject of discussion. By degrees the conversation changed 
into the old inquiry as to who this Captain Clifford was; and 
just as it had reached that point, it reached also the gently 
deafened ears of Lord Mauleverer. 

“ Pray, my lord,” said the old duchess, “since he is one of 
your guests, you, who know who and what every one is, can 
possibly inform us of the real family of this beautiful Mr. 
Clifford?” 

“One of my guests, did you say?” answered Mauleverer, 
irritated greatly beyond his usual quietness of manner. 
“Really, your grace does me wrong. He may be a guest 
of my valet, but he assuredly is not mine; and should I 
encounter him, I shall leave it to my valet to give him his 
conye as well as his invitation! ” 

Mauleverer, heightening his voice as he observed athwart 
the table an alternate paleness and flush upon Lucy’s face, 
which stung all the angrier passions, generally torpid in him 


262 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


into venom, looked round, on concluding, with a haughty and 
sarcastic air. So loud had been his tone, so pointed the 
insult, and so dead the silence at the table while he spoke, 
that every one felt the affront must be carried at once to 
Clifford’s hearing, should he be in the room. And after 
Mauleverer had ceased, there was a universal nervous and 
indistinct expectation of an answer and a scene; all was still, 
and it soon became certain that Clifford was not in the apart- 
ment. When Mr. Shrewd had fully convinced himself of this 
fact, — for there was a daring spirit about Clifford which few 
wished to draw upon themselves, — that personage broke the 
pause by observing that no man who pretended to be a gentle-' 
man would intrude himself, unasked and unwelcome, into any 
society; and Mauleverer, catching up the observation, said 
(drinking wine at the same time with Mr. Shrewd) that un- 
doubtedly such conduct fully justified the rumours respecting 
Mr. Clifford, and utterly excluded him from that rank to 
which it was before more than suspected he had no claim. 

So luminous and satisfactory an opinion from such an 
authority, once broached, was immediately and universally 
echoed; and long before the repast was over, it seemed to be 
tacitly agreed that Captain Clifford should be sent to Coven- 
try, and if he murmured at the exile, he would have no right 
to insist upon being sent thence to the devil. 

The good old squire, mindful of his former friendship for 
Clifford, and not apt to veer, was about to begin a speech on 
the occasion, when Lucy, touching his arm, implored him to 
be silent; and so ghastly was the paleness of her cheek while 
she spoke, that the squire’s eyes, obtuse as he generally was, 
opened at once to the real secret of her heart. As soon as the 
truth flashed upon him, he wondered, recalling Clifford’s great 
personal beauty and marked attentions, that it had not flashed 
upon him sooner ; and leaning back on his chair, he sank into 
one of the most unpleasant reveries he had ever conceived. 

At a given signal the music for the dancers recommenced, 
and at a hint to that effect from the host, persons rose without 
ceremony to repair to other amusements, and suffer such guests 
as had hitherto been excluded from eating to occupy the place 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


263 


of the relinquishers. Lucy, glad to escape, was one of the 
first to resign her situation, and with the squire she returned 
to the grounds. During the banquet, evening had closed in, 
and the scene now really became fairy-like and picturesque; 
lamps hung from many a tree, reflecting the light through the 
richest and softest hues ; the music itself sounded more musi- 
cally than during the day ; gipsy -tents were pitched at wild 
corners and copses, and the bright wood-fires burning in them 
blazed merrily upon the cold yet cheerful air of the increasing 
night. The view was really novel and inviting ; and as it had 
been an understood matter that ladies were to bring furs, 
cloaks, and boots, all those who thought they looked well in 
such array made little groups, and scattered themselves about 
the grounds and in the tents. They, on the contrary, in 
whom “ the purple light of love ” was apt by the frost to be 
propelled from the cheeks to the central ornament of the face, 
or who thought a fire in a room quite as agreeable as a fire in 
a tent, remained within, and contemplated the scene through 
the open windows. 

Lucy longed to return home, nor was the squire reluctant; 
but, unhappily, it wanted an hour to the time at which the 
carriage had been ordered, and she mechanically joined a 
group of guests who had persuaded the good-natured squire 
to forget his gout and venture forth to look at the illumina- 
tions. Her party was soon joined by others, and the group 
gradually thickened into a crowd ; the throng was stationary 
for a few minutes before a little temple in which fireworks 
had just commenced an additional attraction to the scene. 
Opposite to this temple, as well as in its rear, the walks and 
trees had been purposely left in comparative darkness, in 
order to heighten the effect of the fireworks. 

“I declare,” said Lady Simper, glancing down one of the 
alleys which seemed to stretch away into blackness, — “I 
declare it seems quite a levers’ walk. How kind in Lord 
Mauleverer! — such a delicate attention — ” 

“ To your ladyship ! ” added Mr. Shrewd, with a bow. 

While, one of this crowd, Lucy was vacantly eying the long 
trains of light which ever and anon shot against the sky, she 


264 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


felt her hand suddenly seized, and at the same time a yoke 
whispered, “For God’s sake, read this now and grant my 
request! ” 

The voice, which seemed to rise from the very heart of the 
speaker, Lucy knew at once; she trembled violently, and 
remained for some minutes with eyes which did not dare to 
look from the ground. A note she felt had been left in her 
hand; and the agonized and earnest tone of that voice, which 
was dearer to her than the fulness of all music, made her 
impatient yet afraid to read it. As she recovered courage, she 
looked around, and seeing that the attention of all was bene 
upon the fireworks, and that her father in particular, leaning 
on his cane, seemed to enjoy the spectacle with a child’s 
engrossed delight, she glided softly away, and entering un- 
perceived one of the alleys, she read, by a solitary lamp that 
burned at its entrance, the following lines, written in pencil 
and in a hurried hand, apparently upon a leaf torn from a 
pocket-book : — 

I implore, I entreat you, Miss Brandon, to see me, if but for a mo- 
ment. * I purpose to tear myself away from the place in which you 
reside, to go abroad, to leave even the spot hallowed by your footstep. 
After this night my presence, my presumption, will degrade you no 
more. But this night, for mercy’s sake, see me, or I shall go mad ! 
I will but speak to you one instant : this is all I ask. If you grant me 
this prayer, the walk to the left where you stand, at the entrance to 
which there is one purple lamp, will afford an opportunity to your 
mercy. A few yards down that walk I will meet you, — none can see 
or hear us. Will you grant this? I know not,. I dare not think; but 
under any case, your name shall be the last upon my lips. 

P. C. 

As Lucy read this hurried scrawl, she glanced towards the 
lamp above her, and saw that she had accidentally entered 
the very walk indicated in the note. She paused, she hesi- 
tated; the impropriety, the singularity of the request, darted 
upon her at once; on the other hand, the anxious voice still 
ringing in her ear, the incoherent vehemence of the note, the 
risk, the opprobrium Clifford had incurred solely — her heart 
whispered — to see her, all aided her simple temper, her kind 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


265 


feelings, and her love for the petitioner, in inducing her to 
consent. She cast one glance behind, — all seemed occupied 
with far other thoughts than that of notice towards her; she 
looked anxiously before, — all looked gloomy and indistinct ; 
but suddenly, at some little distance, she descried a dark 
figure in motion. She felt her knees shake under her, her 
heart beat violently; she moved onward a few paces, again 
paused, and looked back. The figure before her moved as in 
approach ; she resumed courage, and advanced, — the figure 
was by her side. 

“How generous, how condescending, is this goodness in 
Miss Brandon ! ” said the voice, which so struggled with 
secret and strong emotion that Lucy scarcely recognized it 
as Clifford’s. “I did not dare to expect it; and now — now 
that I meet you — ” Clifford paused, as if seeking words; 
and Lucy, even through the dark, perceived that her strange 
companion was powerfully excited; she waited for him to 
continue, but observing that he walked on in silence, she said, 
though with a trembling voice, “Indeed, Mr. Clifford, I fear 
that it is very, very improper in me to meet you thus ; nothing 
but the strong expressions in your letter — and — and — in 
short, my fear that you meditated some desperate design, at 
which I could not guess, caused me to yield to your wish for 
an interview.” She paused, and Clifford still preserving 
silence, she added, with some little coldness in her tone : “ If 
you have really aught to say to me, you must allow me to 
request that you speak it quickly. This interview, you must 
be sensible, ought to end almost as soon as it begins.” 

“Hear me, then!” said Clifford, mastering his embarrass- 
ment and speaking in a firm and clear voice ; “ is that true 
which I have but just heard, — is it true that I have been 
spoken of in your presence in terms of insult and affront? ” 

It was now for Lucy to feel embarrassed; fearful to give 
pain, and yet anxious that Clifford should know, in order that 
he might disprove, the slight and the suspicion which the 
mystery around him drew upon his name, she faltered between 
the two feelings, and without satisfying the latter, succeeded 
in realizing the fear of the former. 


266 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“ Enough ! ” said Clifford, in a tone of deep mortification, as 
his quick ear caught and interpreted, yet more humiliatingly 
than the truth, the meaning of her stammered and confused 
reply, — “enough! I see that it is true, and that the only 
human being in the world to whose good opinion I am not 
indifferent has been a witness of the insulting manner in which 
others have dared to speak of me ! ” 

“But,” said Lucy, eagerly, “why give the envious or the 
idle any excuse? Why not suffer your parentage and family 
to be publicly known? Why are you here” — and her voice 
sank into a lower key — “ this very day, unasked, and there- 
fore subject to the cavils of all who think the poor distinction 
of an invitation an honour? Forgive me, Mr. Clifford; per- 
haps I offend. I hurt you by speaking thus frankly ; but your 
good name rests with yourself, and your friends eannot but 
feel angry that you should trifle with it.” 

“Madam,” said Clifford; and Lucy’s eyes, now growing 
accustomed to the darkness, perceived a bitter smile upon his 
lips, “ my name, good or ill, is an object of little care to me. 
I have read of philosophers who pride themselves in placing 
no value in the opinions of the world. Rank me among that 
sect. But I am — I own I am — anxious that you alone, of 
all the world, should not despise me; and now that I feel you 
do, that you must, everything worth living or hoping for is 
past ! ” 

“Despise you!” said Lucy, and her eyes filled with tears ; 
“indeed you wrong me and yourself. But listen to me, Mr. 
Clifford. I have seen, it is true, but little of the world, yet 
I have seen enough to make me wish I could have lived in 
retirement forever. The rarest quality among either sex, 
though it is the simplest, seems to me good-nature; and the 
only occupation of what are termed ‘ fashionable people ’ ap- 
pears to be speaking ill of one another. Nothing gives such a 
scope to scandal as mystery; nothing disarms it like open- 
ness. I know, your friends know, Mr. Clifford, that your 
character can bear inspection; and I believe, for my own part, 
the same of your family. Why not, then, declare who and 
what you are?” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


267 


“That candour would indeed be my best defender,” said 
Clifford, in a tone which ran displeasingly through Lucy’s 
ear; “but in truth, madam, I repeat, I care not one drop of 
this worthless blood what men say of me: that time has 
passed, and forever; perhaps it never keenly existed for me, 

— no matter. I came hither, Miss Brandon, not wasting a 
thought on these sickening fooleries, or on the hoary idler by 
whom they are given. I came hither only once more to see 
you, to hear you speak, to watch you move, to tell you” — 
and the speaker’s voice trembled, so as to be scarcely audible 

— “to tell you, if any reason for the disclosure offered itself, 
that I have had the boldness, the crime, to love — to love — 
0 God ! to adore you ; and then to leave you forever ! ” 

Pale, trembling, scarcely preserved from falling by the tree 
against which she leaned, Lucy listened to this abrupt avowal. 

“Dare I touch this hand?” continued Clifford, as he knelt 
and took it timidly and reverently. “You know not, you 
cannot dream, how unworthy is he who thus presumes; yet 
not all unworthy, while he is sensible of so deep, so holy a 
fueling as that which he bears to you. God bless you, Miss 
Brandon ! — Lucy, God bless you ! And if hereafter you hear 
me subjected to still blacker suspicion or severer scrutiny than 
that which I now sustain; if even your charity and goodness 
can find no defence for me; if the suspicion become certainty, 
and the scrutiny end in condemnation, — believe at least that 
circumstances have carried me beyond my nature, and that 
under fairer auspices I might have been other than I am ! ” 

Lucy’s tear dropped upon Clifford’s hand as he spoke; and 
while his heart melted within him as he felt it and knew his 
own desperate and unredeemed condition, he added, — 

“ Every one courts you, — the proud, the rich, the young, 
the high-born, — all are at your feet! You will select one of 
that number for your husband; may he watch over you as I 
would have done! — love you as I do he cannot ! Yes, I repeat 
it,” continued Clifford, vehemently, — “he cannot! None 
amidst the gay, happy, silken crowd of your equals and fol- 
lowers can feel for you that single and overruling passion 
which makes you to me what all combined — • country, power. 


268 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


wealth, reputation, an honest name, peace, common safety, 
the quiet of the common air, alike the least blessing and the 
greatest — are to all others ! Once more, may God in heaven 
watch over you and preserve you! I tear myself, on leaving 
you, from all that cheers or blesses or raises or might have 
saved me ! Farewell ! ” 

The hand which Lucy had relinquished to her strange suitor 
was pressed ardently to his lips, dropped in the same instant, 
and she knew that she was once more alone. 

But Clifford, hurrying rapidly through the trees, made his 
way towards the nearest gate which led from Lord Maul- 
everer’s domain; when he reached it, a crowd of the more 
elderly guests occupied the entrance, and one of these was a 
lady of such distinction that Mauleverer, in spite of his aver- 
sion to any superfluous exposure to the night air, had obliged 
himself to conduct her to her carriage. He was in a very ill 
humour with this constrained politeness, especially as the car- 
riage was very slow in relieving him of his charge, when he 
saw, by the lamplight, Clifford passing near him,- and winning 
his waj' to the gate. Quite forgetting his worldly prudence, 
which should have made him averse to scenes with any one, 
especially with a flying enemy, and a man with whom, if he 
believed aright, little glory was to be gained in conquest, 
much less in contest; and only remembering Clifford’s rival- 
ship, and his own hatred towards him for the presumption, 
Mauleverer, uttering a hurried apology to the lady on his 
arm, stepped forward, and opposing Clifford’s progress, said, 
with a bow of tranquil insult, “Pardon me, sir, but is it at 
my invitation or that of one of my servants that you have 
honoured me with your company this day?” 

Clifford’s thoughts at the time of this interruption were of 
that nature before which all petty misfortunes shrink into 
nothing; if, therefore, he started for a moment at the earl’s 
address, he betrayed no embarrassment in reply, but bowing 
with an air of respect, and taking no notice of the affront 
implied in Mauleverer’s speech, he answered, — 

“Your lordship has only to deign a glance at my dress to 
see that I have not intruded myself on your grounds with the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


269 


intention of claiming your hospitality. The fact is, and I 
trust to your lordship’s courtesy to admit the excuse, that 
I leave this neighbourhood to-morrow, and for some length of 
time. A person whom I was very anxious to see before I left 
was one of your lordship’s guests; I heard this, and knew that 
I should have no other opportunity of meeting the person in 
question before my departure; and I must now throw myself 
on the well-known politeness of Lord Mauleverer to pardon a 
freedom originating in a business very much approaching to 
a necessity.” 

Lord Mauleverer’s address to Clifford had congregated an 
immediate crowd of eager and expectant listeners; but so 
quietly respectful and really gentlemanlike were Clifford’s 
air and tone in excusing himself, that the whole throng were 
smitten with a sudden disappointment. 

Lord Mauleverer himself, surprised by the temper and 
deportment of the unbidden guest, was at a loss for one 
moment; and Clifford was about to take advantage of that 
moment and glide away, when Mauleverer, with a second 
bow, more civil than the former one, said, — 

“ I cannot but be happy, sir, that my poor place has afforded 
you any convenience; but if I am not very impertinent, will 
you allow me to inquire the name of my guest with whom you 
required a meeting? ” 

“My lord,” said Clifford, drawing himself up and speaking 
gravely and sternly, though still with a certain deference, “ I 
need not surely point out to your lordship’s good sense and 
good feeling that your very question implies a doubt, and 
consequently an affront, and that the tone of it is not such as 
to justify that concession on my part which the further expla- 
nation you require would imply ! ” 

Few spoken sarcasms could be so bitter as that silent one 
which Mauleverer could command by a smile, and with this 
complimentary expression on his thin lips and raised brow, 
the earl answered : “ Sir, I honour the skill testified by your 
reply; it must be the result of a profound experience in these 
affairs. I wish you, sir, a very good night; and the next time 
you favour me with a visit, I am quite sure that your motives 


270 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


for so indulging me will be no less creditable to you than at 
present.” 

With these words Mauleverer turned to rejoin his fair- 
charge. But Clifford was a man who had seen in a short 
time a great deal of the world, and knew tolerably well the 
theories of society, if not the practice of its minutiae; more- 
over, he was of an acute and resolute temper, and these prop- 
erties of mind, natural and acquired, told him that he was 
now in a situation in which it had become more necessary 
to defy than to conciliate. Instead therefore of retiring he 
walked deliberately up to Mauleverer, and said, — 

“ My lord, I shall leave it to the judgment of your guests 
to decide whether you have acted the part of a nobleman and 
a gentleman in thus, in your domains, insulting one who has 
given yon such explanation of his trespass as would fully 
excuse him in the eyes of all considerate or courteous persons. 
I shall also leave it to them to decide whether the tone of your 
inquiry allowed me to give you any further apology. But I 
shall take it upon myself \ my lord, to demand from you an 
immediate explanation of your last speech.” 

“ Insolent ! ” cried Mauleverer, colouring with indignation, 
and almost for the first time in his life losing absolute com- 
mand over his temper; “do you bandy words with me? Be- 
gone, or I shall order my servants to thrust you forth ! ” 
“Begone, sir! begone!” cried several voices in echo to 
Mauleverer, from those persons who deemed it now high time 
to take part with the powerful. 

Clifford stood his ground, gazing around with a look of 
angry and defying contempt, which, joined to his athletic 
frame, his dark and fierce eye, and a heavy riding-whip, 
which, as if mechanically, he half raised, effectually kept 
the murmurers from proceeding to violence. 

“ Poor pretender to breeding and to sense ! ” said he, dis- 
dainfully turning to Mauleverer; “with one touch of this 
whip I could shame you forever, or compel you to descend 
from the level of your rank to that of mine, and the action 
would be but a mild return to your language. But I love 
rather to teach you than to correct. According to my creed, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 271 

my lord, he conquers most in good breeding who forbears the 
most, — scorn enables me to forbear ! Adieu ! ” 

With this, Clifford turned on his heel and strode away. A 
murmur, approaching to a groan, from the younger or sillier 
part of the parasites (the mature and the sensible have no 
extra emotion to throw away), followed him as he disappeared. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

Outlaw. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you ! 

Val. Ruffians, forego that rude, uncivil touch ! 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Ox leaving the scene in which he had been so unwelcome a 
guest, Clifford hastened to the little inn where he had left his 
horse. He mounted and returned to Bath. His thoughts 
were absent, and he unconsciously suffered the horse to direct 
its course whither it pleased. This was naturally towards 
the nearest halting-place which the animal remembered ; and 
this halting-place was at that illustrious tavern, in the 
suburbs of the town, in which we have before commemorated 
Clifford’s re-election to the dignity of chief. It was a house 
of long-established reputation; and here news of any of the 
absent confederates was always to be obtained. This circum- 
stance, added to the excellence of its drink, its ease, and the 
electric chain of early habits, rendered it a favourite haunt, 
even despite their present gay and modish pursuits, with 
Tomlinson and Pepper; and here, when Clifford sought the 
pair at unseasonable hours, was he for the most part sure to 
find them. As. his meditations were interrupted by the 
sudden stopping of his horse beneath the well-known sign, 
Clifford, muttering an angry malediction on the animal, 
spurred it onward in the direction of his own home. He 
had already reached the end of the street, when his resolution 
seemed to change, and muttering to himself, “ Ay, I might as 
well arrange this very night for our departure ! ” he turned 


272 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


his horse’s head backward, and was once more, at the tavern 
door. He threw the bridle over an iron railing, and knock- 
ing with a peculiar sound at the door, was soon admitted. 

“Are and here?” asked he of the old woman, 

as he entered, mentioning the cant words by which, among 
friends, Tomlinson and Pepper were usually known. 

“They are both gone on the sharps to-night,” replied the 
old lady, lifting her unsnuffed candle to the face of the 
speaker with an intelligent look; Oliver 1 is sleepy, and 
the lads will take advantage of his nap.” 

“Do you mean,” answered Clifford, replying in the same 
key, which we take the liberty to paraphrase, “that they are 
out on any actual expedition?” 

“To be sure,” rejoined the dame. “They who lag late on 
the road may want money for supper ! ” 

“Ha! which road?” 

“You are a pretty fellow for captain!” rejoined the dame, 
with a good-natured sarcasm in her tone. “ Why, Captain 
Gloak, poor fellow ! knew every turn of his men to a hair, 
and never needed to ask what they were about. Ah, he was a 
fellow! none of your girl-faced mudgers, who make love to 
ladies, forsooth, — a pretty woman need not look far for a 
kiss when he was in the room, I warrant, however coarse her 
duds might be; and lauk! but the captain was a sensible man, 
and liked a cow as well as a calf.” 

“So, so! on the road, are they?” cried Clifford, musingly, 
and without heeding the insinuated attack on his decorum. 
“But answer me, what is the plan? Be quick! ” 

“Why,” replied the dame, “there’s some swell cove of a 
lord gives a blow-out to-day; and the lads, dear souls! think 
to play the queer on some straggler.” 

Without uttering a word, Clifford darted from the house, 
and was remounted before the old lady had time to recover 
her surprise. 

“If you want to see them,” cried she, as he put spurs to his 
horse, “they ordered me to have supper ready at — ” The 
horse’s hoofs drowned the last words of the dame; and care* 

1 The moon. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


273 


fully rebolting the door, and muttering an invidious compari- 
son between Captain Clifford and Captain Gloak, the good 
landlady returned to those culinary operations destined to 
rejoice the hearts of Tomlinson and Pepper. 

Return we ourselves to Lucy. It so happened that the 
squire’s carriage was the last to arrive; for the coachman, 
long uninitiated among the shades of Warlock into the dissi- 
pation of fashionable life, entered on his debut at Bath, with 
all the vigorous heat of matured passions for the first time 
released, into the festivities of the ale-house, and having a 
milder master than most of his comrades, the fear of dis- 
pleasure was less strong in his aurigal bosom than the love of 
companionship ; so that during the time this gentleman was 
amusing himself, Lucy had ample leisure for enjoying all the 
thousand-and-one reports of the scene between Mauleverer 
and Clifford which regaled her ears. Nevertheless, whatever 
might have been her feelings at these pleasing recitals, a cer- 
tain vague joy predominated over all. A man feels but slight 
comparative happiness in being loved, if he know that it is 
in vain ; but to a woman that simple knowledge is sufficient 
to destroy the memory of a thousand distresses, and it is not 
till she has told her heart again and again that she is loved, 
that she will even begin to ask if it be in vain. 

It was a partially starlight yet a dim and obscure night, for 
the moon had for the last hour or two been surrounded by 
mist and cloud, when at length the carriage arrived; and 
Mauleverer, for the second time that evening playing the 
escort, conducted Lucy to the vehicle. Anxious to learn if 
she had seen or been addressed by Clifford, the subtle earl, as 
he led her to the gate, dwelt particularly on the intrusion 
of that person, and by the trembling of the hand which rested 
on his arm, he drew no delicious omen for his own hopes. 
“However,” thought he, “the man goes to-morrow, and then 
the field will be clear; the girl’s a child yet, and I forgive 
her folly.” And with an air of chivalric veneration, Maul- 
everer bowed the object of his pardon into her carriage. 

As soon as Lucy felt herself alone with her father, the 
emotions so long pent within her forced themselves into vent, 

18 


274 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


and leaning back against the carriage, sbe wept, though in 
silence, tears, burning tears, of sorrow, comfort, agitation, 
anxiety. 

The good old squire was slow in perceiving his daughter’s 
emotion; it would have escaped him altogether, if, actuated 
by a kindly warming of the heart towards her, originating in 
his new suspicion of her love for Clifford, he had not put his 
arm round her neck; and this unexpected caress so entirely 
unstrung her nerves that Lucy at once threw herself upon her 
father’s breast, and her weeping, hitherto so quiet, became 
distinct and audible. 

“Be comforted, my dear, dear child!” said the squire, 
almost affected to tears himself; and his emotion, arousing 
him from his usual mental confusion, rendered his words less 
involved and equivocal than they were wont to be. “And 
now I do hope that you won’t vex yourself ; the young man is 
indeed — and, I do assure you, I always thought so — a very 
charming gentleman, there ’s no denying it. But what can 
we do? You see what they all say of him, and it really was 
— we must allow that — very improper in him to come with- 
out being asked. Moreover, my dearest child, it is* very 
wrong, very wrong indeed, to love any one, and not know 
who he is; and — and — but don’t cry, my dear love, don’t 
cry so ; all will be very well, I am sure, — quite sure ! ” 

As he said this, the kind old man drew his daughter nearer 
him, and feeling his hand hurt by something she wore unseen 
which pressed against it, he inquired, with some suspicion 
that the love might have proceeded to love-gifts, what it was. 

“It is my mother’s picture,” said Lucy, simply, and putting 
it aside. 

The old squire had loved his wife tenderly; and when Lucy 
made this reply, all the fond and warm recollections of his 
youth rushed upon him. He thought, too, how earnestly on 
her death-bed that wife had recommended to his vigilant care 
their only child now weeping on his bosom : he remembered 
how, dwelling on that which to all women seems the grand 
epoch of life, she had said, “Never let her affections be trifled 
with, — never be persuaded by your ambitious brother to make 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


275 


her marry where she loves not, or to oppose her, without 
strong reason, where she does : though she be but a child now, 
I know enough of her to feel convinced that if ever she love, 
she will love too well for her own happiness, even with all 
things in her favour.” These words, these recollections, 
joined to the remembrance of the cold-hearted scheme of 
William Brandon, which he had allowed himself to favour, 
and of his own supineness towards Lucy’s growing love for 
Clifford, till resistance became at once necessary and too late, 
all smote him with a remorseful sorrow, and fairly sobbing 
himself, he said, “Thy mother, child! ah, would that she 
were living, she would never have neglected thee as I have 
done ! ” 

The squire’s self-reproach made Lucy’s tears cease on the 
instant; and as she covered her father’s hands with kisses, 
she replied only by vehement accusations against herself, and 
praises of his too great fatherly fondness and affection. This 
little burst, on both sides, of honest and simple-hearted love 
ended in a silence full of tender and mingled thoughts; and 
as Lucy still clung to the breast of the old man, uncouth as 
he was in temper, below even mediocrity in intellect, and 
altogether the last person in age or mind or habit that seemed 
fit for a confidant in the love of a young and enthusiastic girl, 
she felt the old homely truth that under all disadvantages 
there are, in this hollow world, few in whom trust can be so 
safely reposed, few who so delicately and subtilely respect the 
confidence, as those from whom we spring. 

The father and daughter had been silent for some minutes, 
and the former was about to speak, when the carriage sud- 
denly stopped. The squire heard a rough voice at the horses’ 
heads; he looked forth from the window to see, through the 
mist of the night, what could possibly be the matter, and he 
encountered in this action, just one inch from his forehead, 
the protruded and shining barrel of a horse-pistol. We may 
believe, without a reflection on his courage, that Mr. Brandon 
threw himself back into his carriage with all possible de- 
spatch; and at the same moment the door was opened, and a 
voice said, not in a threatening but a smooth accent, — 


276 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to disturb you, but 
want is imperious ; oblige me with your money, your watches, 
your rings, and any other little commodities of a similar 
nature ! ” 

So delicate a request the squire had not the heart to resist, 
the more especially as he knew himself without any weapons 
of defence ; accordingly he drew out a purse, not very full, it 
must be owned, — together with an immense silver hunting- 
watch, with a piece of black ribbon attached to it. 

“There, sir,” said he, with a groan, “don’t frighten the 
young lady.” 

The gentle applicant, who indeed was no other than the 
specious Augustus Tomlinson, slid the purse into his waist- 
coat-pocket, after feeling its contents with a rapid and 
scientific finger. 

“Your watch, sir,” quoth he, — and as he spoke he thrust 
it carelessly into his coat-pocket, as a school-boy would thrust 
a peg-top, — “is heavy; but trusting to experience, since an 
accurate survey is denied me, I fear it is more valuable from 
its weight than its workmanship : however, I will not wound 
your vanity by affecting to be fastidious. But surely the 
young lady, as you call her, — for I pay you the compliment 
of believing your word as to her age, inasmuch as the night is 
too dark to allow me the happiness of a personal inspection, 
— the young lady has surely some little trinket she can dis- 
pense with. ‘ Beauty when unadorned,’ you know, etc.” 

Lucy, who, though greatly frightened, lost neither her 
senses nor her presence of mind, only answered by drawing 
forth a little silk purse, that contained still less than the 
leathern convenience of the squire; to this she added a gold 
chain; and Tomlinson, taking them with an affectionate 
squeeze of the hand and a polite apology, was about to 
withdraw, when his sagacious eyes were suddenly stricken 
by the gleam of jewels. The fact was that in altering the 
position of her mother’s picture, which had been set in the 
few hereditary diamonds possessed by the Lord of Warlock, 
Lucy had allowed it to hang on the outside of her dress, and 
bending forward to give the robber her other possessions, the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 277 

diamonds at once came in full sight, and gleamed the more 
invitingly from the darkness of the night. 

“Ah, madam,” said Tomlinson, stretching forth his hand, 
“you would play me false, would you? Treachery should 
never go unpunished. Favour me instantly with the little 
ornament round your neck ! ” 

“ I cannot, — I cannot ! ” said Lucy, grasping her treasure 
with both her hands; “it is my mother’s picture, and my 
mother is dead ! ’’ 

“The wants of others, madam,” returned Tomlinson, who 
could not for the life of him rob immorally , “are ever more 
worthy your attention than family prejudices. Seriously, give 
it, and that instantly; we are in a hurry, and your horses are 
plunging like devils: they will break your carriage in an 
instant, — despatch ! ” 

The squire was a brave man on the whole, though no hero; 
and the nerves of an old fox-hunter soon recover from a little 
alarm. The picture of his buried wife was yet more inesti- 
mable to him than it was to Lucy, and at this new demand his 
spirit was roused within him. 

He clenched his fists, and advancing himself as it were on 
his seat, he cried in a loud voice, — 

“ Begone, fellow ! I have given you — for my own part I 
think so — too much already ; and, by God, you shall not have 
the picture ! ” 

“Don’t force me to use violence,” said Augustus; and put- 
ting one foot on the carriage-step, he brought his pistol within 
a few inches of Lucy’s breast, rightly judging, perhaps, that 
the show of danger to her would be the best method to intimi- 
date the squire. At that instant the valorous moralist found 
himself suddenly seized with a powerful gripe on the shoul- 
der; and a low voice, trembling with passion, hissed in his 
ear. Whatever might be the words that startled his organs, 
they operated as an instantaneous charm; and to their aston- 
ishment, the squire and Lucy beheld their assailant abruptly 
withdraw. The door of the carriage was clapped to, and 
scarcely two minutes had elapsed before, the robber having 
remounted, his comrade, hitherto stationed at the horses’ 


278 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


heads, set spurs to his own steed, and the welcome sound of 
receding hoofs smote upon the bewildered ears of the father 
and daughter. 

The door of the carriage was again opened; and a voice, 
which made Lucy paler than the preceding terror, said, — 

“I fear, Mr. Brandon, the robbers have frightened your 
daughter. There is now, however, nothing to fear; the 
ruffians are gone.” 

“God bless me!” said the squire; “why, is that Captain 
Clifford?” 

“ It is ; and he conceives himself too fortunate to have been 
of the smallest service to Mr. and Miss Brandon.” 

On having convinced himself that it was indeed to Mr. 
Clifford that he owed his safety as well as that of his daugh- 
ter, whom he believed to have been in a far more imminent 
peril than she really was, — for to tell thee the truth, reader, 
the pistol of Tomlinson was rather calculated for show than 
use, having a peculiarly long bright barrel with nothing in it, 

— the squire was utterly at a loss how to express his grati- 
tude; and when he turned to Lucy to beg she would herself 
thank their gallant deliverer, he found that, overpowered with 
various emotions, she had, for the first time in her life, fainted 
away. 

“ Good heavens ! ” cried the alarmed father, “ she is dead, 

— my Lucy, my Lucy, they have killed her ! ” 

To open the door nearest to Lucy, to bear her from the 
carriage in his arms, was to Clifford the work of an instant. 
Utterly unconscious of the presence of any one else, — uncon- 
scious even of what he said, he poured forth a thousand wild, 
passionate, yet half-audible expressions; and as he bore her 
to a bank by the roadside, and seating himself supported her 
against his bosom, it would be difficult perhaps to say, whether 
something of delight — of burning and thrilling delight — 
was not mingled with his anxiety and terror. He chafed her 
small hands in his own; his breath, all trembling and warm, 
glowed upon her cheek ; and once, and but once, his lips drew 
nearer, and breathing aside the dishevelled richness of her 
tresses, clung in a long and silent kiss to her own. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


279 


Meanwhile, by the help of the footman, who had now some- 
what recovered his astonished senses, the squire descended 
from his carriage, and approached with faltering steps the 
place where his daughter reclined. At the instant that he 
took her hand, Lucy began to revive ; and the first action, in 
the bewildered unconsciousness of awaking, was to throw her 
arm around the neck of her supporter. * 

Could all the hours and realities of hope, joy, pleasure, in 
Clifford’s previous life have been melted down and concen- 
trated into a single emotion, that emotion would have been 
but tame to the rapture of Lucy’s momentary and innocent 
caress! And at a later yet no distant period, when in the 
felon’s cell the grim visage of Death scowled upon him, 
it may be questioned whether his thoughts dwelt not far 
more often on the remembrance of that delightful moment 
than on the bitterness and ignominy of an approaching 
doom. 

“ She breathes, — she moves, — she wakes ! ” cried the 
father; and Lucy, attempting to rise, and recognizing the 
squire’s voice, said faintly, — 

“Thank God, my dear father, you are not hurt! And are 
they really gone? — and where — where are we ? ” 

The squire, relieving Clifford of his charge, folded his child 
in his arms, while in his own elucidatory manner he informed 
her where she was, and with whom. The lovers stood face 
to face to each other; but what delicious blushes did the 
night, which concealed all but the outline of their forms, hide 
from the eyes of Clifford! 

The honest and kind heart of Mr. Brandon was glad of a 
release to the indulgent sentiments it had always cherished 
towards the suspected and maligned Clifford, and turning now 
from Lucy, it fairly poured itself forth upon her deliverer. 
He grasped him warmly by the hand, and insisted upon his 
accompanying them to Bath in the carriage, and allowing the 
footman to ride his horse. This offer was still pending, when 
the footman, who had been to see after the health and comfort 
of his fellow-servant, came to inform the party, in a dolorous 
accent, of something which, in the confusion and darkness of 


280 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


the night, they had not yet learned, — namely, that the horses 
and coachman were gone! 

“Gone!” said the squire, — “gone! Why, the villains 
can’t (for my part, I never believe, though I have heard 
such wonders of, those sleight of hand) have bagged them! ” 

Here a low groan was audible ; and the footman, sympathet- 
ically guided to the spot whence it emanated, found the huge 
body of the coachman safely deposited, with its face down- 
ward, in the middle of the kennel. After this worthy had 
been lifted to his legs, and had shaken himself into intelli- 
gence, it was found that when the robber had detained the 
horses, the coachman, who required very little to conquer his 
more bellicose faculties, had — he himself said, by a violent 
blow from the ruffian, though, perhaps, the cause lay nearer 
home — quitted the coach-box for the kennel, the horses grew 
frightened, and after plunging and rearing till he cared no 
longer to occupy himself with their arrest, the highwayman 
had very quietly cut the traces, and by the time present, it 
was not impossible that the horses were almost at the door 
of their stables at Bath. 

The footman who had apprised the squire of this misfortune 
was, unlike most news-tellers, the first to offer consolation. 

“There be an excellent public,” quoth he, “about a half a 
mile on, where your honour could get horses; or, mayhap, if 
Miss Lucy, poor heart, be faint, you may like to stop for the 
night.” 

Though a walk of half a mile in a dark night and under 
other circumstances would not have seemed a grateful propo- 
sition, yet at present, when the squire’s imagination had 
only pictured to him the alternatives of passing the night in 
the carriage or of crawling on foot to Bath, it seemed but a 
very insignificant hardship; and tucking his daughter’s arm 
under his own, while in a kind voice he told Clifford “to sup- 
port her on the other side,” the squire ordered the footman to 
lead the way with Clifford’s horse, and the coachman to fol- 
low or be d — d, whichever he pleased. 

In silence Clifford offered his arm to Lucy, and silently she 
accepted the courtesy. The squire was the only talker; and 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


281 


the theme he chose was not ungrateful to Lucy, for it was the 
praise of her lover. But Clifford scarcely listened, for a 
thousand thoughts and feelings contested within him; and 
the light touch of Lucy’s hand upon his arm would alone 
have been sufficient to distract and confuse his attention. 
The darkness of the night, the late excitement, the stolen 
kiss that still glowed upon his lips, the remembrance of 
Lucy’s flattering agitation in the scene with her at Lord 
Mauleverer’s, the yet warmer one of that unconscious em- 
brace, which still tingled through every nerve of his frame, 
all conspired with the delicious emotion which he now expe- 
rienced at her presence and her contact to intoxicate and 
inflame him. Oh, those burning moments in love, when 
romance has just mellowed into passion, and without losing 
anything of its luxurious vagueness mingles the enthusiasm of 
its dreams with the ardent desires of reality and earth ! That 
is the exact time when love has reached its highest point, — 
when all feelings, all thoughts, the whole soul, and the whole 
mind, are seized and engrossed, — when every difficulty 
weighed in the opposite scale seems lighter than dust, — 
when to renounce the object beloved is the most deadly and 
lasting sacrifice, — and when in so many breasts, where hon- 
our, conscience, virtue, are far stronger than we can believe 
them ever to have been in a criminal like Clifford, honour, 
conscience, virtue, have perished at once and suddenly into 
ashes before that mighty and irresistible fire. 

The servant, who had had previous opportunities of ascer- 
taining the topography of the “ public” of which he spake, 
and who was perhaps tolerably reconciled to his late terror in 
the anticipation of renewing his intimacy with “the spirits of 
the past,” now directed the attention of our travellers to a 
small inn just before them. Mine host had not yet retired to 
repose, and it was not necessary to knock twice before the door 
was opened. 

A bright fire, an officious landlady, a commiserate landlord, 
a warm potation, and the promise of excellent beds, a.ll ap- 
peared to our squire to make ample amends for the intelli- 
gence that the inn was not licensed to let post-horses ; and 


282 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


mine host having promised forthwith to send two stout fel- 
lows, a rope, and a cart-horse to bring the carriage under 
shelter (for the squire valued the vehicle because it was 
twenty years old), and moreover to have the harness repaired, 
and the horses ready by an early hour the next day, the good 
humour of Mr. Brandon rose into positive hilarity. Lucy 
retired under the auspices of the landlady to bed; and the 
squire having drunk a bowl of bishop, and discovered a thou- 
sand new virtues in Clifford, especially that of never inter- 
rupting a good story, clapped the captain on the shoulder, 
and making him promise not to leave the inn till he had seen 
him again, withdrew also to the repose of his pillow. Clifford 
remained below, gazing abstractedly on the fire for some time 
afterwards ; nor was it till the drowsy chambermaid had thrice 
informed him of the prepared comforts of his bed, that he 
adjourned to his chamber. Even then it seems that sleep did 
not visit his eyelids; for a wealthy grazier, who lay in the 
room below, complained bitterly the next morning of some 
person walking overhead “in all manner of strides, just for 
all the world like a happarition in boots. ” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Viola. And dost thou love me 7 
Ly sander. . . . Love thee, Viola 7 
Do I not fly thee when my being drinks 
Light from thine eyes 7 — that flight is all my answer ! 

The Bride, Act ii. sc. 1. 

The curtain meditations of the squire had not been without 
the produce of a resolve. His warm heart at once reopened 
to the liking he had formerly conceived for Clifford; he longed 
for an opportunity to atone for his past unkindness, and to 
testify his present gratitude ; moreover, he felt at once indig- 
nant at, and ashamed of, his late conduct in joining the popu- 
lar, and, as he now fully believed, the causeless prepossession 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


283 


against his young friend, and before a more present and a 
stronger sentiment his habitual deference for his brother’s 
counsels faded easily away. Coupled with these favourable 
feelings towards Clifford were his sagacious suspicions, or 
rather certainty, of Lucy’s attachment to her handsome deliv- 
erer; and he had at least sufficient penetration to perceive 
that she was not likely to love him the less for the night’s 
adventure. To all this was added the tender recollection of 
his wife’s parting words; and the tears and tell-tale agitation 
of Lucy in the carriage were sufficient to his simple mind, 
which knew not how lightly maiden’s tears are shed and 
dried, to confirm the prediction of the dear deceased. Nor 
were the squire’s more generous and kindly feelings utterly 
unmixed with selfish considerations. Proud , but not the 
least ambitious , he was always more ready to confer an 
honour than receive one, and at heart he was secretly glad 
at the notion of exchanging, as a son-in-law, the polished and 
unfamiliar Mauleverer for the agreeable and social Clifford. 
Such in “admired disorder,” were the thoughts which rolled 
through the teeming brain of Joseph Brandon; and before he 
had turned on his left side, which he always did preparatory 
to surrendering himself to slumber, the squire had fully come 
to a determination most fatal to the schemes of the lawyer 
and the hopes of the earl. 

The next morning, as Lucy was knitting 

“ The loose train of her amber-dropping hair ” 

before the little mirror of her chamber, which even through 
its dimmed and darkened glass gave back a face which might 
have shamed a Grecian vision of Aurora, a gentle tap at her 
do oi; announced her father. There was in his rosy and comely 
countenance that expression generally characteristic of a man 
pleased with himself, and persuaded that he is about to give 
pleasure. 

“My dear child,” said the squire, fondly stroking down the 
luxuriance of his Lucy’s hair, and kissing her damask cheek, 
“I am come to have some little conversation with you. Sit 
down now, and (for my part, I love to talk at my ease ; and, 


284 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


by the by, shut the window, my love, it is an easterly wind) 
I wish that we may come to a clear and distinct understand- 
ing. Hem ! — give me your hand, my child, — I think on 
these matters one can scarcely speak too precisely and to the 
purpose; although I am well aware (for, for my own part, I 
always wish to act to every one, to you especially, my dearest 
child, with the greatest consideration) that we must go to 
work with as much delicacy as conciseness. You know this 
Captain Clifford, — ’tis a brave youth, is it not? Well — 
nay, never blush so deeply; there is nothing (for in these 
matters one can’t have all one’s wishes, one can’t have every- 
thing ) to be ashamed of! Tell me now, child, dost think he is 
in love with thee?” 

If Lucy did not immediately answer by words, her pretty 
lips moved as if she could readily reply; and finally they 
settled into so sweet and so assured a smile that the squire, 
fond as he was of “ precise” information, was in want of no 
fuller answer to his question. 

“Ay, ay, young lady,” said he, looking at her with all a 
father’s affection, “I see how it is. And, come now, what 
do you turn away for? Dost think, if, as I believe, though 
there are envious persons in the world, as there always are 
when a man ’s handsome or clever or brave, — though, by the 
way, which is a very droll thing in my eyes, they don’t envy, 
at least not ill-naturedly, a man for being a lord or rich, but, 
quite on the contrary, rank and money seem to make them 
think one has all the cardinal virtues. Humph! If, I say, 
this Mr. Clifford should turn out to be a gentleman of family, 
— for you know that is essential, since the Brandons have, as 
my brother has probably told you, been a great race many 
centuries ago, — dost think, my child, that thou couldst,give 
up (the cat is out of the bag) this old lord, and marry a simple 
gentleman? ” 

The hand which the squire had held was now with an arch 
tenderness applied to his mouth, and when he again seized it 
Lucy hid her glowing face in his bosom ; and it was only by a 
whisper, as if the very air was garrulous, that he could draw 
forth (for now he insisted on a verbal reply) her happy 
answer. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


285 


We are not afraid that our reader will blame us for not 
detailing the rest of the interview between the father and 
daughter: it did not last above an hour longer; for the squire 
declared that, for his own part, he hated more words than 
were necessary. Mr. Brandon was the first to descend to the 
breakfast, muttering as he descended the stairs, “Well now, 
hang me if I am not glad that ’s off (for I do not like to think 
much of so silly a matter) my mind. And as for my brother, 
I sha’ n't tell him till it ’s all over and settled. And if he is 
angry, he and the old lord may, though I don’t mean to be 
unbrotherly, go to the devil together! ” 

When the three were assembled at the breakfast-table, 
there could not, perhaps, have been found anywhere a 
stronger contrast than that, which the radiant face of Lucy 
bore to the haggard and worn expression that disfigured the 
handsome features of her lover. So marked was the change 
that one night seemed to have wrought upon Clifford, that 
even the squire was startled and alarmed at it. But Lucy, 
whose innocent vanity pleased itself with accounting for the 
alteration, consoled herself with the hope of soon witnessing 
a very different expression on the countenance of her lover; 
and though she was silent, and her happiness lay quiet and 
deep within her, yet in her eyes and lip there was that which 
seemed to Clifford an insult to his own misery, and stung him 
to the heart. However, he exerted himself to meet the con- 
versation of the squire, and to mask as well as he was able 
the evidence of the conflict which still raged within him. 

The morning was wet and gloomy; it was that drizzling and 
misty rain which is so especially nutritious to the growth of 
blue devils, and the jolly squire failed not to rally his young 
friend upon his feminine susceptibility to the influences of 
the weather. Clifford replied jestingly ; and the jest, if bad, 
was good enough to content the railer. In this facetious man- 
ner passed the time, till Lucy, at the request of her father, 
left the room to prepare for their return home. 

Drawing his chair near to Clifford’s, the squire then com- 
menced in real and affectionate earnest his operations — these 
he had already planned — in the following order : they were, 


286 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


first, to inquire into and to learn Clifford’s rank, family, and 
prospects ; secondly, having ascertained the proprieties of the 
outer man, they were to examine the state of the inner one ; 
and thirdly, should our skilful inquirer find his guesses at 
Clifford’s affection for Lucy confirmed, they were to expel the 
modest fear of a repulse, which the squire allowed was natural 
enough, and to lead the object of the inquiry to a knowledge 
of the happiness that, Lucy consenting, might be in store for 
him. While, with his wonted ingenuity, the squire was pur- 
suing his benevolent designs, Lucy remained in her own room, 
in such meditation and such dreams as were natural to a heart 
so sanguine and enthusiastic. 

She had been more than half an hour alone, when the 
chambermaid of the hostelry knocked at her door, and deliv- 
ered a message from the squire, begging her to come down to 
him in the parlour. With a heart that beat so violently it 
almost seemed to wear away its very life, Lucy slowly and 
with tremulous steps descended to the parlour. On opening 
C'he door she saw Clifford standing in the recess of the win- 
dow; his face was partly turned from her, and his eyes down- 
cast. The good old squire sat in an elbow-chair, and a sort 
of puzzled and half-satisfied complacency gave expression to 
his features. 

“ Come hither, child,” said he, clearing his throat; “ Captain 
Clifford — ahem! — has done you the honour to — and I dare 
say you will be very much surprised — not that, for my own 
part, I think there is much to wonder at in it, but such may 
be my partial opinion (and it is certainly very natural in me) 
— to make you a declaration of love. He declares, moreover, 
that he is the most miserable of men, and that he would die 
sooner than have the presumption to hope. Therefore you 
see, my love, I have sent for you, to give him permission to 
destroy himself in any way he pleases; and I leave him to 
show cause why (it is a fate that sooner or later happens to all 
his fellow-men) sentence of death should not be passed against 
him.” Having delivered this speech with more propriety of 
word than usually fell to his share, the squire rose hastily 
and hobbled out of the room. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


287 


Lucy sank into the chair her father had quitted; and 
Clifford, approaching towards her, said in a hoarse and low 
voice, — 

“ Your father, Miss Brandon, says rightly, that I would die 
rather than lift my eyes in hope to you. I thought yesterday 
that I had seen you for the last time; chance, not my own 
folly or presumption, has brought me again before you ; and 
even the few hours I have passed under the same roof with 
you have made me feel as if my love, my madness, had never 
reached its height till now. Oh, Lucy ! ” continued Clifford, 
in a more impassioned tone, and, as if by a sudden and irre- 
sistible impulse, throwing himself at her feet, “ if I could hope 
to merit you, — if I could hope to raise myself, — if I could — 
But no, no, no ! I am cut off from all hope, and forever ! ” 

There was so deep, so bitter, so heartfelt an anguish and 
remorse in the voice with which these last words were spoken, 
that Lucy, hurried off her guard, and forgetting everything in 
wondering sympathy and compassion, answered, extending her 
hand towards Clifford, who,^ still kneeling, seized and covered 
it with kisses of fire, — 

“ Do not speak thus, Mr. Clifford ; do not accuse yourself of 
what I am sure, quite sure, you cannot deserve. Perhaps — 
forgive me — your birth, your fortune, are beneath your 
merits, and you have penetrated into my father’s weakness 
on the former point; or perhaps you yourself have not avoided 
all the errors into which men are hurried, — perhaps you have 
been imprudent or thoughtless, perhaps you have (fashion is 
contagious) played beyond your means or incurred debts: 
these are faults, it is true, and to be regretted, yet surely not 
irreparable.” 

For that instant can it be wondered that all Clifford’s 
resolution and self-denial deserted him, and lifting his eyes, 
radiant with joy and gratitude, to the face which bent in 
benevolent innocence towards him, he exclaimed, — 

“No, Miss Brandon! — no, Lucy! — dear, angel Lucy! my 
faults are less venial than these, but perhaps they are no less 
the consequence of circumstances and contagion; perhaps it 
may not be too late to repair them. Would you — you in- 


288 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


deed deign to be my guardian, I might not despair of being 
saved ! ” 

“If,” said Lucy, blushing deeply and looking down, while 
she spoke quick and eagerly, as if to avoid humbling him by 
her offer, — “ if, Mr. Clifford, the want of wealth has in any 
way occasioned you uneasiness or — or error, do believe me — 
I mean us — so much your friends as not for an instant to 
scruple in relieving us of some little portion of our last night’s 
debt to you.” 

“ Dear, noble girl ! ” said Clifford, while there writhed upon 
his lips one of those smiles of powerful sarcasm that some- 
times distorted his features, and thrillingly impressed upon 
Lucy a resemblance to one very different in reputation and 
character to her lover, — “ do not attribute my misfortunes to 
so petty a source; it is not money that I shall want while I 
live, though I shall to my last breath remember this delicacy 
in you, and compare it with certain base remembrances in my 
own mind. Yes! all past thoughts and recollections will 
make me hereafter worship you even more than I do now; 
while in your heart they will — unless Heaven grant me one 
prayer — make you scorn and detest me ! ” 

“ For mercy’s sake, do not speak thus ! ” said Lucy, gazing 
in indistinct alarm upon the dark and working features of her 
lover. “ Scorn, detest you ! Impossible ! How could I, after 
the remembrance of last night?” 

“Ay! of last night,” said Clifford, speaking through his 
ground teeth, — “ there is much in that remembrance to live 
long in both of us; but you — you — fair angel” (and all 
harshness and irony vanishing at once from his voice and 
countenance, yielded to a tender and deep sadness, mingled 
with a respect that bordered on reverence), — “ you never could 
have dreamed of more than pity for one like me, — you never 
could have stooped from your high and dazzling purity to 
know for me one such thought as that which burns at my 
heart for you, — you — Yes, withdraw your hand, I am not 
worthy to touch it! ” And clasping his own hands before his 
face, he became abruptly silent; but his emotions were but 
ill-concealed, and Lucy saw the muscular frame before her 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


289 


heaved and convulsed by passions which were more intense 
and rending because it was only for a few moments that they 
conquered his self-will and struggled into vent. 

If afterwards, but long afterwards, Lucy, recalling the 
mystery of his words, confessed to herself that they betrayed 
guilt, she was then too much affected to think of anything but 
her love and his emotion. She bent down, and with a girlish 
and fond self-abandonment which none could have resisted, 
placed both her hands on his. Clifford started, looked up, 
and in the next moment he had clasped her to his heart; and 
while the only tears he had shed since his career of crime fell 
fast and hot upon her countenance, he kissed her forehead, her 
cheek, her lips in a passionate and wild transport. His voice 
died within him, — he could not trust himself to speak; only 
one thought, even in that seeming forgetfulness of her and of 
himself, stirred and spoke at his breast, — flight. The more 
he felt he loved, the more tender and the more confiding the 
object of his love, the more urgent became the necessity to 
leave her. All other duties had been neglected, but he loved 
with a real love; and love, which taught him one duty, bore 
him triumphantly through its bitter ordeal. 

“ You will hear from me to-night,” he muttered; “ believe 
that I am mad, accursed, criminal, but not utterly a monster ! 
I ask no more merciful opinion ! ” He drew himself from his 
perilous position, and abruptly departed. 

When Clifford reached his home, he found his worthy coad- 
jutors waiting for him with alarm and terror on their coun- 
tenances. An old feat, in which they had signalized them- 
selves, had long attracted the rigid attention of the police, 
and certain officers had now been seen at Bath, and certain 
inquiries had been set on foot, which portended no good to 
the safety of the sagacious Tomlinson and the valorous Pep- 
per. They came, humbly and penitent ially demanding pardon 
for their unconscious aggression of the squire’s carriage, and 
entreating their captain’s instant advice. If Clifford had be- 
fore wavered in his disinterested determination, — if visions 
of Lucy, of happiness, and reform had floated in his solitary 
ride too frequently and too glowingly before his eyes, — the 

19 


290 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


sight of these men, their conversation, their danger, all suf- 
ficed to restore his resolution. “ Merciful God ! ” thought he, 
“ and is it to the comrade of such lawless villains, to a man, 
like them, exposed hourly to the most ignominious of deaths, 
that I have for one section of a moment dreamed of consign- 
ing the innocent and generous girl, whose trust or love is the 
only crime that could deprive her of the most brilliant 
destiny?” 

Short were Clifford’s instructions to his followers, and so 
much do we do mechanically, that they were delivered with his 
usual forethought and precision. “You will leave the town 
instantly; go not, for your lives, to London, or to rejoin any 
of your comrades. Ride for the Red Cave; provisions are 
stored there, and, since our late alteration of the interior, it 
will afford ample room to conceal your horses. On the night 
of the second day from this I will join you. But be sure that 
you enter the cave at night, and quit it upon no account till I 
come! ” 

“Yes! ” said he, when he' was alone, “I will join you again, 
but only to quit you. One more offence against the law, or at 
least one sum wrested from the swollen hands of the rich suffi- 
cient to equip me for a foreign army, and I quit the country 
of my birth and my crimes. If I cannot deserve Lucy Bran- 
don, I will be somewhat less unworthy. Perhaps — why not? 
I am young, my nerves are not weak, my brain is not dull, — 
perhaps I may in some field of honourable adventure win a 
name that before my death-bed I may not blush to acknowl- 
edge to her ! ” 

While this resolve beat high within Clifford’s breast, Lucy 
sadly and in silence was continuing with the squire her short 
journey to Bath. The latter was very inquisitive to know 
why Clifford had gone, and what he had avowed; and Lucy, 
scarcely able to answer, threw everything on the promised 
letter of the night. 

“I am glad,” muttered the squire to her, “that he is going 
to write; for, somehow or other, though I questioned him 
very tightly, he slipped through my cross-examination, and 
bursting out at once as to his love for you, left me as wise 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


291 


about himself as I was before : no doubt (for my own part I 
don’t see what should prevent his being a great man incog.') 
this letter will explain all ! ” 

Late that night the letter came. Lucy, fortunately for 
her, was alone in her room; she opened it, and read as 
follows : — 

CLIFFORD’S LETTER. 

I have promised to write to you, and I sit down to perform that 
promise. At this moment the recollection of your goodness, your gen- 
erous consideration, is warm within me : and while I must choose calm 
and common words to express what I ought to say, my heart is alter- 
nately melted and torn by thoughts which would ask words, oh how 
different ! Your father has questioned me often of my parentage and 
birth, — I have hitherto eluded his interrogatories. Learn now who I 
am. In a wretched abode, surrounded by the inhabitants of poverty 
and vice, I recall my earliest recollections. My father is unknown to 
me as to every one ; my mother, — to you I dare not mention who or 
what she was, — she died in my infancy. Without a name, but not 
without an inheritance (my inheritance was large, — it was infamy!), I 
was thrown upon the world. I had received by accident some education, 
and imbibed some ideas not natural to my situation ; since then I have 
played many parts in life. Books and men I have not so neglected but 
that I have gleaned at intervals some little knowledge from both. 
Hence, if I have seemed to you better than I am, you will perceive the 
cause. Circumstances made me soon my own master; they made me 
also one whom honest men do not love to look upon ; my deeds have 
been, and my character is, of a par with my birth and my fortunes. I 
came, in the noble hope to raise and redeem myself by gilding my fate 
with a wealthy marriage, to this city. I saw you, whom I had once 
before met. I heard you were rich. Hate me, Miss Brandon, hate me ! 
— I resolved to make your ruin the cause of my redemption. Happily 
for you, I scarcely knew you before I loved you ; that love deepened, — 
it caught something pure and elevated from yourself. My resolution 
forsook me ; even now I could throw myself on my knees and thank 
God that you — you, dearest and noblest of human beings — are not my 
wife. Now, is my conduct clear to you? If not, imagine me all that is 
villanous, save in one point, where you are concerned, and not a shadow 
of mystery will remain. Your kind father, overrating the paltry service 
I rendered you, would have consented to submit my fate to your deci- 
sion. I blush indignantly for him — for you — that any living man 


292 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


should have dreamed of such profanation for Miss Brandon. Yet I 
myself was carried away and intoxicated by so sudden and so soft a 
hope, — even I dared to lift my eyes to you, to press you to this guilty 
heart, to forget myself, and to dream that you might be mine ! Can 
you forgive me for this madness ? And hereafter, when in your lofty 
and glittering sphere of wedded happiness, can you remember my pre- 
sumption and check your scorn ? Perhaps you think that by so late a 
confession I have already deceived you. Alas ! you know not what it 
costs me now to confess ! I had only one hope in life, it was that you 
might still, long after you had ceased to see me, fancy me not utterly 
beneath the herd with whom you live. This burning yet selfish vanity 
I tear from me, and now I go where no hope can pursue me. No hope 
for myself, save one which can scarcely deserve the name, for it is rather 
a rude and visionary wish than an expectation, — it is that under another 
name and under different auspices you may hear of me at some distant 
time ; and when I apprise you that under that name you may recognize 
one who loves you better than all created things, you may feel then, at 
least, no cause for shame at your lover. What will you be then ? A 
happy wife, a mother, the centre of a thousand joys, beloved, admired, 
blest when the eye sees you and the ear hears ! And this is what I 
ought to hope, this is the consolation that ought to cheer me ; perhaps a 
little time hence it will. Not that I shall love you less, but that I shall 
love you less burningly, and therefore less selfishly. I have now written 
to you all that it becomes you to receive from me. My horse waits 
below to bear me from this city, and forever from your vicinity. For- 
ever ! — ay, you are the only blessing forever forbidden me. Wealth I 
may gain, a fair name, even glory I may perhaps aspire to, — to heaven 
itself I may find a path ; but of you my very dreams cannot give me the 
shadow of a hope. I do not say, if you could pierce my soul while I 
write, that you would pity me. You may think it strange, but I would 
not have your pity for worlds ; I think I would even rather have your 
hate, — pity seems so much like contempt. But if you knew what an 
effort has enabled me to tame down my language, to curb my thoughts, 
to prevent me from embodying that which now makes my brain whirl, 
and my hand feel as if the living fire consumed it ; if you knew 
what has enabled me to triumph over the madness at my heart, and 
spare you what, if writ or spoken, would seem like the ravings of 
insanity, you would not and you could not despise me, though you 
might abhor. 

And now Heaven guard and bless you ! Nothing on earth could 
injure you. And even the wicked who have looked upon you learn to 
pray, — I have prayed for you ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


293 


Thus, abrupt and signatureless, ended the expected letter. 
Lucy came down the next morning at her usual hour, and, 
except that she was very pale, nothing in her appearance 
seemed to announce past grief or emotion. The squire asked 
her if she had received the promised letter. She answered, 
in a clear though faint voice, that she had, — that Mr. Clifford 
had confessed himself of too low an origin to hope for mar- 
riage with Mr. Brandon’s family; that she trusted the squire 
would keep his secret; and that the subject might never 
again be alluded to by either. If in this speech there was 
something alien to Lucy’s ingenuous character, and painful 
to her mind, she felt it as it were a duty to her former lover 
not to betray the whole of that confession so bitterly wrung 
from him. Perhaps, too, there was in that letter a charm 
which seemed to her too sacred to be revealed to any one; and 
mysteries were not excluded even from a love so ill-placed 
and seemingly so transitory as hers. 

Lucy’s answer touched the squire in his weak point. “A 
man of decidedly low origin,” he confessed, “was utterly out 
of the question; nevertheless, the young man showed a great 
deal of candour in his disclosure.” He readily promised 
never to broach a subject necessarily so unpleasant; and 
though he sighed as he finished his speech, yet the extreme 
quiet of Lucy’s manner reassured him; and when he per- 
ceived that she resumed, though languidly, her wonted avoca* 
tions, he felt but little doubt of her soon overcoming the 
remembrance of what he hoped was but a girlish and fleeting 
fancy. He yielded, with avidity, to her proposal to return to 
Warlock; and in the same week as that in which Lucy had 
received her lover’s mysterious letter, the father and daughter 
commenced their journey home. 


294 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

Butler. What are these, sir? 

Yeoman. And of what nature, to what use? 

Latroc. Imagine. 

The Tragedy of Rollo. 

Quickly. He ’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. 

Henry V. 

The scream of our narrative now conducts us back to 
William Brandon. The law -promotions previously intended 
were completed ; and to the surprise of the public, the envied 
barrister, undergoing the degradation of knighthood, had, at 
the time we return to him, just changed his toilsome occupa- 
tions for the serene dignity of the bench. Whatever regret 
this wily and aspiring schemer might otherwise have felt at 
an elevation considerably less distinguished than he might 
reasonably have expected, was entirely removed by the hopes 
afforded to him of a speedy translation to a more brilliant 
office : it was whispered among those not unlikely to foresee 
such events, that the interest of the government required his 
talents in the house of peers. Just at this moment, too, the 
fell disease, whose ravages Brandon endeavoured, as jealously 
as possible, to hide from the public, had appeared suddenly 
to yield to the skill of a new physician ; and by the adminis- 
tration of medicines which a man less stern or resolute might 
have trembled to adopt (so powerful and for the most part 
deadly was their nature), he passed from a state of almost 
insufferable torture to an elysium of tranquillity and ease. 
Perhaps, however, the medicines which altered also decayed 
his constitution; and it was observable that in two cases 
where the physician had attained a like success by the same 
means, the patients had died suddenly, exactly at the time 
when their cure seemed to be finally completed. However, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


295 


Sir William Brandon appeared very little anticipative of 
danger. His manner became more cheerful and even than 
it had ever been before ; there was a certain lightness in his 
gait, a certain exhilaration in his voice and eye, which seemed 
the tokens of one from whom a heavy burden had been sud- 
denly raised, and who was no longer prevented from the 
eagerness of hope by the engrossing claims of a bodily pain. 
He had always been bland in society, but now his courtesy 
breathed less of artifice, — it took a more hearty tone. An- 
other alteration was discernible in him, and that was precisely 
the reverse of what might have been expected. He became 
more thrifty , more attentive to the expenses of life than he 
had been. Though a despiser of show and ostentation, and 
far too hard to be luxurious, he was too scientific an architect 
of the weaknesses of others not to have maintained during his 
public career an opulent appearance and a hospitable table. 
The profession he had adopted requires, perhaps, less of 
externals to aid it than any other; still Brandon had affected 
to preserve parliamentary as well as legal importance; and 
though his house was situated in a quarter entirely profes- 
sional, he had been accustomed to assemble around his hos- 
pitable board all who were eminent, in his political party, 
for rank or for talent. Now, however, when hospitality and 
a certain largeness of expenses better became his station, he 
grew closer and more exact in his economy. Brandon never 
could have degenerated into a miser ; money, to one so habit- 
ually wise as he was, could never have passed from means 
into an object; but he had evidently, for some cause or 
another, formed the resolution to save. Some said it was 
the result of returning health, and the hope of a prolonged 
life, to which many objects for which wealth is desirable 
might occur. But when it was accidentally ascertained that 
Brandon had been making several inquiries respecting a large 
estate in the neighbourhood of Warlock, formerly in the pos- 
session of his family, the gossips (for Brandon was a man to 
be gossiped about) were no longer in want of a motive, false 
or real, for the judge’s thrift. 

It was shortly after his elevation to the bench, and ere 


296 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


these signs of change had become noticeable, that the same 
strange ragamuffin whom we have mentioned before, as intro- 
duced by Mr. Swoppem to a private conference with Brandon, 
was admitted to the judge’s presence. 

“Well,” said Brandon, impatiently, the moment the door 
was closed, “your news?” 

“ Vy, your ’onor,” said the man, bashfully, twirling a thing 
that stood proxy for a hat, “ I thinks as ’ow I shall be hable 
to satisfy your vorship’s ’onor.” Then, approaching the judge 
and assuming an important air, he whispered, “ ’T is as ’ow I 
thought ! ” 

“My God!” cried Brandon, with vehemence. “And he is 
alive, — and where?” 

“I believes,” answered the seemly confidant of Sir William 
Brandon, “that he be ’s alive; and if he be ’s alive, may I flash 
my ivories in a glass case, if I does not ferret him out ; but as 
to saying vhere he be at this nick o’ the moment, smash me 
if lean!” 

“Is he in this country,” said Brandon; “or do you believe 
that he has gone abroad? ” 

“Vy, much of one and not a little of the other! ” said the 
euphonious confidant. 

“How! speak plain, man; what do you mean? ” 

“Vy, I means, your ’onor, that I can’t say vhere he is.” 

“And this,” said Brandon, with a muttered oath, — “this 
is your boasted news, is it? Dog! damned, damned dog! if 
you trifle with me or play me false, I will hang you, — by the 
living God, I will! ” 

The man shrank back involuntarily from Brandon’s vindic- 
tive forehead and kindled eyes; but with the cunning peculiar 
to low vice, answered, though in a humbler tone, — 

“Andvot good vill that do your ’onor? If so be as how 
you scrags I, vill that put your vorship in the vay of finding 
he?” 

Never was there an obstacle in grammar through which a 
sturdy truth could not break; and Brandon, after a moody 
pause, said in a milder voice, — 

“ I did not mean to frighten you! Never mind what I said; 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


297 


but you can surely guess whereabouts he is, or what means 
of life he pursues. Perhaps,” — and a momentary paleness 
crossed Brandon’s swarthy visage, — “perhaps he may have 
been driven into dishonesty in order to maintain himself! ” 

The informant replied with great naivete, that such a thing 
was not impossible ! And Brandon then entered into a series 
of seemingly careless but artful cross-questionings, which 
either the ignorance or the craft of the man enabled him to 
baffle. After some time Brandon, disappointed and dissat- 
isfied, gave up his professional task; and bestowing on the 
man many sagacious and minute instructions as well as a very 
liberal donation, he was forced to dismiss his mysterious visi- 
tor, and to content himself with an assured assertion that if 
the object of his inquiries should not already be gone to the 
devil, the strange gentleman employed to discover him would 
certainly, sooner or later, bring him to the judge. 

This assertion, and the interview preceding it, certainly 
inspired Sir William Brandon with a feeling like compla- 
cency, although it was mingled with a considerable alloy. 

“ I do not, ” thought he, concluding his meditations when he 
was left alone, — “ I do not see what else I can do ! Since it 
appears that the boy had not even a name when he set out 
alone from his wretched abode, I fear that an advertisement 
would have but little chance of even designating, much less of 
finding him, after so long an absence. Besides, it might make 
me the prey to impostors; and in all probability he has either 
left the country, or adopted some mode of living which would 
prevent his daring to disclose himself ! ” This thought plunged 
the soliloquist into a gloomy abstraction, which lasted several 
minutes, and from which he started, muttering aloud, — 

“Yes, yes! I dare to believe, to hope it. Now for the 
minister and the peerage ! ” And from that time the root of 
Sir William Brandon’s ambition spread with a firmer and 
more extended grasp over his mind. 

We grieve very much that the course of our story should now 
oblige us to record an event which we would willingly have 
spared ourselves the pain of narrating. The good old Squire 
of Warlock Manor-house had scarcely reached his home on 


298 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


his return from Bath, before William Brandon received the 
following letter from his brother’s gray -headed butler : — 

Honnured Sur, — I send this with all speede, thof with a hevy 
hart, to axquainte you with the# sudden (and it is feered by his loving 
friends and well-wishers, which latter, to be sur, is all as knows him) 
dangeros ilness of the Squire . 1 He was seezed, poor deer gentleman 
(for God never made a better, no offence to your Honnur), the moment 
he set footing in his Own Hall, and what has hung rond me like a mill- 
ston ever sin, is that instead of his saying, “ How do you do, Sampson V ” 
as was his wont, whenever he returned from forren parts, sich as Bath, 
Lunnun, and the like, he said, “ God bless you, Sampson ! ” which 
makes me think sumhow that it will be his last wurds ; for he has never 
spoke sin, for all Miss Lucy be by his bedside continual She, poor 
deer, don’t take on at all, in regard of crying and such woman’s wurk, 
but looks nevertheless, for all the wurld, just like a copse. I sends Tom 
the postilion with this hexpress, nowing he is a good hand at a gallop, 
having, not sixteen years ago, beat some o’ the best on ’un at a raceng. 
Hoping as yer Honnur will loge no time in coming to this “ house of 
mourning,” I remane, with all respect, 

Your Honnur’s humble servant to command, 

John Sampson. 

Sir William Brandon did not give himself time to re-read 
this letter, in order to make it more intelligible, before he 
wrote to one of his professional compeers, requesting him to fill 
his place during his unavoidable absence, on the melancholy 
occasion of his brother’s expected death; and having so done, 
he immediately set off for Warlock. Inexplicable even to him- 
self was that feeling, so nearly approaching to real sorrow, 
which the worldly lawyer felt at the prospect of losing his 
guileless and unspeculating brother. Whether it be that tur- 
bulent and ambitious minds, in choosing for their wavering 
affections the very opposites of themselves, feel (on losing the 
fellowship of those calm, fair characters that have never 
crossed their rugged path) as if they lost, in losing them, a 

1 The reader, who has doubtless noticed how invariably servants of long 
standing acquire a certain tone from that of their master, may observe that 
honest John Sampson had caught from the squire the habit of parenthetical 
composition. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


299 


kind of haven for their own restless thoughts and tempest- 
worn designs! — be this as it may, certain it is that when 
William Brandon arrived at his brother’s door, and was 
informed by the old butler, who for the first time was slow 
to greet him, that the squire had just breathed his last, his 
austere nature forsook him at once, and he felt the shock with 
a severity perhaps still keener than that which a more genial 
and affectionate heart would have experienced. 

As soon as he had recovered his self-possession, Sir William 
made question of his niece; and finding that after an unrelax- 
ing watch during the whole of the squire’s brief illness, nature 
had failed her at his death, and she had been borne senseless 
from his chamber to her own, Brandon walked with a step far 
different from his usual sta/tely gait to the room where his 
brother lay. It was one of the oldest apartments in the house, 
and much of the ancient splendour that belonged to the man- 
sion ere its size had been reduced, with the fortunes of its 
successive owners, still distinguished the chamber. The huge 
mantelpiece ascending to the carved ceiling in grotesque pilas- 
ters, and scroll-work of the blackest oak, with the quartered 
arms of Brandon and Saville escutcheoned in the centre; the 
panelled walls of the same dark wainscot; the armorie of 
ebony; the high-backed chairs, with their tapestried seats; 
the lofty bed, with its hearse-like plumes and draperies of a 
crimson damask that seemed, so massy was the substance and 
so prominent the flowers, as if it were rather a carving than a 
silk, — all conspired with the size of the room to give it a 
feudal solemnity, not perhaps suited to the rest of the house, 
but well calculated to strike a gloomy awe into the breast of 
the worldly and proud man who now entered the death- 
chamber of his brother. 

Silently William Brandon motioned away the attendants, 
and silently he seated himself by the bed, and looked long and 
wistfully upon the calm and placid face of the deceased. It 
is difficult to guess at what passed within him during the 
space of time in which he remained alone in that room. The 
apartment itself he could not at another period have tenanted 
without secret emotion. It was that in which, as a boy, he 


300 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


had himself been accustomed to sleep; and, even then a 
schemer and an aspirant, the very sight of the room sufficed 
to call back all the hopes and visions, the restless projects 
and the feverish desires, which had now brought him to the 
envied state of an acknowledged celebrity and a shattered 
frame. There must have been something awful in the com- 
bination of those active remembrances with the cause which 
had led him to that apartment; and there was a homily in 
the serene countenance of the dead, which preached more 
effectually to the heart of the living than William Brandon 
would ever have cared to own. He had been more than an 
hour in the room, and the evening had already begun to cast 
deep shadows through the small panes of the half-closed win- 
dow, when Brandon was startled by a slight noise. He 
looked up, and beheld Lucy opposite to him. She did not 
see him ; but throwing herself upon the bed, she took the cold 
hand of the deceased, and after a long silence burst into a 
passion of tears. 

“ My father ! ” she sobbed, — “ my kind, good father ! who 
will love me now?” 

“I! ” said Brandon, deeply affected; and passing round the 
bed, he took his niece in his arms: “I will be your father, 
Lucy, and you — the last of our race — shall be to me as a 
daughter ! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


301 


CHAPTER XXV. 

Falsehood in him was not the useless lie 
Of boasting pride or laughing vanity : 

It was the gainful, the persuading art, etc. 

Crabbe. 

On with the horses — off to Canterbury, 

Tramp, tramp o’er pebble, and splash, splash thro’ puddle ; 
Hurrah ! how swiftly speeds the post so merry ! 

“ Here laws are all inviolate • none lay 
Traps for the traveller ; every highway ’s clear ; 

Here — ” he was interrupted by a knife, 

With “ D — your eyes ! your money or your life ! ” 

Don Juan. 


Misfortunes are like the creations of Cadmus, — they 
destroy one another! Roused from the torpor of mind occa- 
sioned by the loss of her lover at the sudden illness of the 
squire, Lucy had no thought for herself, no thought for any 
one, for anything but her father, till long after the earth had 
closed over his remains. The very activity of the latter grief 
was less dangerous than the quiet of the former; and when 
the first keenness of sorrow passed away, and her mind 
gradually and mechanically returned to the remembrance of 
Clifford, it was with an intensity less strong, and less fatal 
to her health and happiness than before. She thought it 
unnatural and criminal to allow anything else to grieve her, 
while she had so sacred a grief as that of her loss ; and her 
mind, once aroused into resistance to passion, betrayed a 
native strength little to have been expected from her appar- 
ent character. Sir William Brandon lost no time in return- 
ing to town after the burial of his brother. He insisted upon 
taking his niece with him; and, though with real reluctance, 
she yielded to his wishes, and accompanied him. By the 


802 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


squire’s will, indeed, Sir William was appointed guardian to 
Lucy, and she yet wanted more than a year of her majority. 

Brandon, with a delicacy very uncommon to him where 
women (for he was a confirmed woman-hater) were concerned, 
provided everything that he thought could in any way conduce 
to her comfort. ’ He ordered it to be understood in his estab- 
lishment that she was its mistress. He arranged and fur- 
nished, according to what he imagined to be her taste, a suite 
of apartments for her sole accommodation ; a separate carriage 
and servants were appropriated to her use ; and he sought, by 
perpetual presents of books or flowers or music, to occupy 
her thoughts, and atone for the solitude to which his profes- 
sional duties obliged him so constantly to consign her. These 
attentions, which showed this strange man in a new light, 
seemed to bring out many little latent amiabilities, which were 
usually imbedded in the callosities of his rocky nature ; and, 
even despite her causes for grief and the deep melancholy 
which consumed her, Lucy was touched with gratitude at 
kindness doubly soothing in one who, however urbane and 
polished, was by no means addicted to the little attentions 
that are considered so gratifying by women, and yet for 
which they so often despise, while they like, him who affords 
them. There was much in Brandon that wound itself insensi- 
bly around the heart. To one more experienced than Lucy, 
this involuntary attraction might not have been incompatible 
with suspicion, and could scarcely have been associated with 
esteem; and yet for all who knew him intimately, even for 
the penetrating and selfish Mauleverer, the attraction existed. 
Unprincipled, crafty, hypocritical, even base when it suited 
his purpose; secretly sneering at the dupes he made, and 
knowing no code save that of interest and ambition ; viewing 
men only as machines, and opinions only as ladders, — there 
was yet a tone of powerful feeling sometimes elicited from a 
heart that could at the same moment have sacrificed a whole 
people to the pettiest personal object: and sometimes with 
Lucy the eloquence or irony of his conversation deepened into 
a melancholy, a half-suppressed gentleness of sentiment, that 
accorded with the state of her own mind and interested her 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


303 


kind feelings powerfully in his. It was these peculiarities in 
his converse which made Lucy love to hear him; and she 
gradually learned to anticipate with a gloomy pleasure the 
hour in which, after the occupations of the day, he was accus- 
tomed to join her. 

“You look unwell, uncle, to-night,” she said, when one 
evening he entered the room with looks more fatigued than 
usual; and rising, she leaned tenderly over him, and kissed 
his forehead. 

“Ay!” said Brandon, utterly unwon by, and even unheed- 
ing, the caress, “our way of life soon passes into the sear and 
yellow leaf; and when Macbeth grieved that he might not look 
to have that which should accompany old age, he had grown 
doting, and grieved for what was worthless.” 

“Nay, uncle, ‘ honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,’ — 
these surely were worth the sighing for? ” 

“Pooh! not worth a single sigh! The foolish wishes wo 
form in youth have something noble and something bodily in 
them; but those of age are utter shadows, and the shadows 
of pygmies! Why, what is honour, after all? What is this 
good name among men? Only a sort of heathenish idol, set 
up to be adored by one set of fools and scorned by another. 
Do you not observe, Lucy, that the man you hear most praised 
by the party you meet to-day is most abused by that which 
you meet to-morrow? Public men are only praised by their 
party; and their party, sweet Lucy, are such base minions 
that it moves one’s spleen to think one is so little as to be 
useful to them. Thus a good name is only the good name of 
a sect, and the members of that sect are only marvellous 
proper knaves.” 

“But posterity does justice to those who really deserve 
fame.” 

“Posterity! Can you believe that a man who knows what 
life is cares for the penny whistles of grown children after his 
death? Posterity, Lucy, — no! Posterity is but the same 
perpetuity of fools and rascals; and even were justice desira- 
ble at their hands, they could not deal it. Do men agree 
whether Charles Stuart was a liar or a martyr? For how 


304 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


many ages have we believed Nero a monster! A writer now 
asks, as if demonstrating a problem, what real historian could 
doubt that Nero was a paragon? The patriarchs of Scripture 
have been declared by modern philosophy to be a series of 
astronomical hieroglyphs; and, with greater show of truth, 
we are assured that the patriot Tell never existed ! Posterity ! 
the word has gulled men enough without my adding to the 
number. I, who loathe the living, can scarcely venerate the 
unborn. Lucy, believe me that no man can mix largely with 
men in political life, and not despise everything that in youth 
he adored! Age leaves us only one feeling, — contempt! ” 
“Are you belied, then?'*’ said Lucy, pointing to a news- 
paper, the organ of the party opposed to Brandon : “ are you 
belied when you are here called ‘ambitious’? When they 
call you ‘selfish’ and ‘grasping,’ I know they wrong you; 
but I confess that I have thought you ambitious ; yet can he 
who despises men desire their good opinion?” 

“ Their good opinion ! ” repeated Brandon, mockingly : “ do 
we want the bray of the asses we ride? No!” he resumed, 
after a pause. “It is power , not honour ; it is the hope of 
elevating oneself in every respect, in the world without as 
well as in the world of one’s own mind : it is this hope which 
makes me labour where I might rest, and will continue the 
labour to my grave. Lucy,” continued Brandon, fixing his 
keen eyes on his niece, “ have you no ambition, — have power 
and pomp and place no charm for your mind?” 

“None!” said Lucy, quietly and simply. 

“ Indeed ! yet there are times when I have thought I recog- 
nized my blood in your veins. You are sprung from a once 
noble, but a fallen race. Are you ever susceptible to the 
weakness of ancestral pride?” 

“You say,” answered Lucy, “that we should care not for 
those who live after us; much less, I imagine, should we care 
for those who have lived ages before t ” 

“ Prettily answered, ” said Brandon, smiling. “ I will tell you 
at one time or another what effect that weakness you despise 
already once had, long after your age, upon me. You are early 
wise on some points; profit by my experience, and be so on ally 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 305 

“ That is to say, in despising all men and all things ! ” said 
Lucy, also smiling. 

“ Well, never mind my creed, — you may be wise after your 
own ; but trust one, dearest Lucy, who loves you purely and 
disinterestedly, and who has weighed with scales balanced to 
a hair all the advantages to be gleaned from an earth in which 
I verily think the harvest was gathered before we were put 
into it, — trust me, Lucy, and never think love, that maiden’s 
dream, so valuable as rank and power : pause well before you 
yield to the former; accept the latter the moment they are 
offered you. Love puts you at the feet of another, and that 
other a tyrant ; rank puts others at your feet, and all those 
thus subjected are your slaves! ” 

Lucy moved her chair so that the new position concealed; 
her face, and did not answer; and Brandon, in an altered 
tone, continued, — 

“Would you think, Lucy, that I once was fool enough to 
imagine that love was a blessing, and to be eagerly sought 
for? I gave up my hopes, my chances of wealth, of distinc- 
tion, — all that had burned from the years of boyhood into 
my very heart. I chose poverty, obscurity, humiliation; but 
I chose also love. What was my reward? Lucy Brandon, I 
was deceived, — deceived ! ” 

Brandon paused; and Lucy took his hand affectionately, 
but did not break the silence. Brandon resumed : — 

“Yes, I was deceived! But I in my turn had a revenge, 
and a fitting revenge ; for it was not the revenge of hatred, 
but” (and the speaker laughed sardonically) “of contempt. 
Enough of this, Lucy! What I wished to say to you is this, 
— grown men and women know more of the truth of things 
than ye young persons think for. Love is a mere bauble, and, 
no human being ever exchanged for it one solid advantage with- 
out repentance. Believe this; and if rank ever puts itself un- 
der those pretty feet, be sure not to spurn the footstool.” 

So saying, with a slight laugh, Brandon lighted his chamber 
candle, and left the room for the night. 

As soon as the lawyer reached his own apartment, he 
indited to Lord Mauleverer the following epistle : — 

20 


306 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Why, dear Mauleverer, do you not come to town? I want you, 
your party wants you ; perhaps the K — g wants you ; and certainly, if 
you are serious about my niece, the care of your own love-suit should 
induce you yourself to want to come hither. I have paved the way for 
you; and I think, with a little management, you may anticipate a 
speedy success. But Lucy is a strange girl ; and, perhaps, after all, 
though you ought to be on the spot, you had better leave her as much as 
possible in my hands. I know human nature, Mauleverer, and that 
knowledge is the engine by which I will work your triumph. As 
for the young lover, I am not quite sure whether it be not better for 
our sake that Lucy should have experienced a disappointment on that 
score ; for when a woman has once loved, and the love is utterly hope- 
less, she puts all vague ideas of other lovers altogether out of her head ; 
she becomes contented with a husband whom she can esteem ! Sweet 
canter ! But you , Mauleverer, want Lucy to love you ! And so she 
will — after you have married her ! She will love you partly from 
the advantages she derives from you, partly from familiarity (to say 
nothing of your good qualities). For my part, I think domesticity goes 
so far that I believe a woman always inclined to be affectionate to a 
man whom she has once seen in his nightcap. However, you should 
come to town ; my poor brother’s recent death allows us to see no one, — 
the coast will be clear from rivals ; grief has softened my niece’s heart; 
in a word, you could not have a better opportunity. Come ! 

“ By the way, you say one of the reasons which made you think ill of 
this Captain Clifford was your impression that in the figure of one of 
his comrades you recognized something that appeared to you to resemble 
one of the fellows who robbed you a few months ago. I understand that 
at this moment the police are in active pursuit of three most accom- 
plished robbers ; nor should I be at all surprised if in this very Clifford 
were to be found the leader of the gang, namely, the notorious Lovett. I 
hear that the said leader is a clever and a handsome fellow, of a gentle- 
manlike address, and that his general associates are two men of the exact 
stamp of the worthies you have so amusingly described to me. I heard 
this yesterday from Nabbem, the police-officer with whom I once scraped 
acquaintance on a trial ; and in my grudge against your rival, I hinted 
at my suspicion that he, Captain Clifford, might not impossibly prove 
this Rinaldo Rinaldini of the roads. Nabbem caught at my hint at 
once ; so that, if it be founded on a true guess, I may flatter my con- 
science as well as my friendship by the hope that I have had some 
hand in hanging this Adonis of my niece’s. Whether my guess be true 
or not, Nabbem says he is sure of this Lovett; for one of his gang 
has promised to betray him. Hang these aspiring dogs I I thought 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


307 


treachery was confined to politics; and that thought makes me turn 
to public matters, in which all people are turning with the most edify- 
ing celerity. . . .” 

Sir William Brandon’s epistle found Mauleverer in a fitting 
mood for Lucy and for London. Our worthy pe^* had been not 
a little chagrined by Lucy’s sudden departure from Bath; and 
while in doubt whether or not to follow her, the papers had 
informed him of the squire’s death. Mauleverer, being then 
fully aware of the impossibility of immediately urging his 
suit, endeavoured, like the true philosopher he was, to recon- 
cile himself to his hope deferred. Few people were more 
easily susceptible of consolation than Lord Mauleverer. He 
found an agreeable lady, of a face more unfaded than her 
reputation, to whom he intrusted the care of relieving his 
leisure moments from ennui ; and being a lively woman, the 
confidante discharged the trust with great satisfaction to Lord 
Mauleverer, for the space of a fortnight, so that he naturally 
began to feel his love for Lucy gradually wearing away, by 
absence and other ties ; but just as the triumph of time over 
passion was growing decisive, the lady left Bath in company 
with a tall guardsman, and Mauleverer received Brandon’s 
letter. These two events recalled our excellent lover to a 
sense of his allegiance; and there being now at Bath no par- 
ticular attraction to counterbalance the ardour of his affection, 
Lord Mauleverer ordered the horses to his carriage, and 
attended only by his valet, set out for London. 

Nothing, perhaps, could convey a better portrait of the 
world’s spoiled darling than a sight of Lord Mauleverer’s 
thin, fastidious features, peering forth through the closed 
window of his luxurious travelling-chariot; the rest of the 
outer man being carefully enveloped in furs, half-a-dozen 
novels strewing the seat of the carriage, and a lean French 
dog, exceedingly like its master, sniffing in vain for the fresh 
air, which, to the imagination of Mauleverer, was peopled 
with all sorts of asthmas and catarrhs! Mauleverer got out 
of his carriage at Salisbury, to stretch his limbs, and to 
amuse himself with a cutlet. Our nobleman was well known 


308 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


on the roads; and as nobody could be more affable, he was 
equally popular. The officious landlord- bustled into the room, 
to wait himself upon his lordship and to tell all the news of 
the place. 

“Well, Mr. Cheerly,” said Mauleverer, bestowing a pene- 
trating glance ^on his cutlet, “the bad times, I see, have not 
ruined your cook.” 

“ Indeed, my lord, your lordship is very good, and the times, 
indeed, are very bad, — very bad indeed. Is there enough 
gravy? Perhaps your lordship will try the pickled onions?” 

“The what? Onions! — oh! ah! nothing can be better; but 
I never touch them. So, are the roads good? ” 

“Your lordship has, I hope, found them good to Salisbury?” 

“Ah! I believe so. Oh! to be sure, excellent to Salisbury. 
But how are they to London? We have had wet weather 
lately, I think ! ” 

“No, my lord. Here the weather has been dry as a bone.” 

“ Or a cutlet ! ” muttered Mauleverer ; and the host 
continued, — 

“ As for the roads themselves, my lord, so far as the roads 
are concerned, they are pretty good, my lord; but I can’t say 
as how there is not something about them that might be 
mended.” 

“By no means improbable! You mean the inns and the 
turnpikes?” rejoined Mauleverer. 

“Your lordship is pleased to be facetious; no! I meant 
something worse than them.” 

“ What ! the cooks? ” 

“No, my lord, the highwaymen!” 

“The highwaymen! indeed?” said Mauleverer, anxiously; 
for he had with him a case of diamonds, which at that time 
were on grand occasions often the ornaments of a gentleman’s 
dress, in the shape of buttons, buckles, etc. He had also a 
tolerably large sum of ready money about him, — a blessing 
he had lately begun to find very rare. “ By the way, the ras- 
cals robbed me before on this very road. My pistols shall be 
loaded this time. Mr. Cheerly, you had better order the 
horses; one may as well escape the nightfall.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 309 

“ Certainly, my lord, certainly. —Jem, the horses immedi- 
ately ! — Yonr lordship will have another cutlet? ” 

“ Not a morsel ! ” 

“A tart?” 

“ A dev — ! not for the world ! ” 

“Bring the cheese, John ! ” 

“Much obliged to you, Mr. Cheerly, but I have dined; and 
if I have not done justice to your good cheer, thank yourself 
and the highwaymen. Where do these highwaymen attack 
one?” 

“ Why, my lord, the neighbourhood of Reading is, I believe, 
the worst part; but they are very troublesome all the way to 
Sal thill.” 

“ Damnation ! the very neighbourhood in which the knaves 
robbed me before! You may well call them troublesome! 
Why the deuce don’t the police clear the country of such a 
movable species of trouble?” 

“Indeed, my lord, I don’t know; but they say as how 
Captain Lovett, the famous robber, be one of the set; and 
nobody can catch him, I fear ! ” 

“Because, I suppose, the dog has the sense to bribe as well 
as bully. What is the general number of these ruffians?” 

“Why, my lord, sometimes one, sometimes two, but seldom 
more than three.” 

Mauleverer drew himself up. “My dear diamonds and my 
pretty purse! ” thought he; “I may save you yet! ” 

“Have you been long plagued with the fellows? ” he asked, 
after a pause, as he was paying his bill. 

“ Why, my lord, we have and we have not. I fancy as how 
they have a sort of a haunt near Reading, for sometimes they 
are intolerable just about there, and sometimes they are quiet 
for months together! For instance, my lord, we thought them 
all gone some time ago; but lately they have regularly stopped 
every one, though I hear as how they have cleared no great 
booty as yet.” 

Here the waiter announced the horses, and Mauleverer 
slowly re-entered his carriage, among the bows and smiles 
of the charmed spirits of the hostelry. 


810 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


During the daylight Mauleverer, who was naturally of a 
gallant and fearless temper, thought no more of the highway- 
men, — a species of danger so common at that time that men 
almost considered it disgraceful to suffer the dread of it to be 
a cause of delay on the road. Travellers seldom deemed it 
best to lose time in order to save money; and they carried 
with them a stout heart and a brace of pistols, instead of 
sleeping all night on the road. Mauleverer, rather a jpreux 
chevalier , was precisely of this order of wayfarers ; and a night 
at an inn, when it was possible to avoid it, was to him, as to 
most rich Englishmen, a tedious torture zealously to be 
shunned. It never, therefore, entered into the head of our 
excellent nobleman, despite his experience, that his diamonds 
and his purse might be saved from all danger if he would 
consent to deposit them, with his own person, at some place 
of hospitable reception; nor, indeed, was it till he was within 
a stage of Reading, and the twilight had entirely closed in, 
that he troubled his head much on the matter. But while the 
horses were putting to, he summoned the postboys to him ; and 
after regarding their countenances with the eye of a man 
accustomed to read physiognomies, he thus eloquently ad- 
dressed them, — 

“Gentlemen, I am informed that there is some danger of 
being robbed between this town and Salthill. Now, I beg to 
inform you that I think it next to impossible for four horses, 
properly directed, to be stopped by less than four men. To 
that number I shall probably yield ; to a less number I shall 
most assuredly give nothing but bullets. You understand 
me? ” 

The post-boys grinned, touched their hats ; and Mauleverer 
slowly continued, — 

“ If, therefore, — mark me ! — one, two, or three men stop 
your horses, and I find that the use of your whips and spurs 
are ineffectual in releasing the animals from the hold of the 
robbers, I intend with these pistols — you observe them ! — to 
shoot at the gentlemen who detain you; but as, though I am 
generally a dead shot, my eyesight wavers a little in the dark, 
I think it very possible that I may have the misfortune to 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


811 


shoot you , gentlemen, instead of the robbers! You see the 
rascals will be close by you, sufficiently so to put you in 
jeopardy, unless indeed you knock them down with the but- 
end of your whips. I merely mention this, that you may be 
prepared. Should such a mistake occur, you need not be 
uneasy beforehand, for I will take every possible care of your 
widows ; should it not, and should we reach Salthill in safety, 
I intend to testify my sense of the excellence of your driving 
by a present of ten guineas apiece! Gentlemen, I have done 
with you. I give you my honour that I am serious in what I 
have said to you. Do me the favour to mount.” 

Mauleverer then called his favourite servant, who sat in 
the dickey in front (rumble-tumbles not being then in use). 

“Smoothson,” said he, “the last time we were attacked on 
this very road, you behaved damnably. See that you do 
better this time, or it may be the worse for you. You have 
pistols to-night about you, eh? Well, that’s right! And 
you are sure they’re loaded? Very well! Now, then, if we 
are stopped, don’t lose a moment. Jump down, and fire one 
of your pistols at the first robber. Keep the other for a sure 
aim. One shot is to intimidate, the second to slay. You 
comprehend? My pistols ‘are in excellent order, I suppose. 
Lend me the ramrod. So, so! No trick this time! ” 

“They would kill a fly, my lord, provided your lordship 
fired straight upon it.” 

“I do not doubt you,” said Mauleverer; “light the lanterns, 
and tell the postboys to drive on.” 

It was a frosty and tolerably clear night. The dusk of the 
twilight had melted away beneath the moon which had just 
risen, and the hoary rime glittered from the bushes and the 
sward, breaking into a thousand diamonds as it caught the 
rays of the stars. On went the horses briskly, their breath 
steaming against the fresh air, and their hoofs sounding 
cheerily on the hard ground. The rapid motion of the car- 
riage, the bracing coolness of the night, and the excitement 
occasioned by anxiety and the forethought of danger; all con- 
spired to stir the languid blood of Lord Mauleverer into a 
vigorous and exhilarated sensation, natural in youth to his 


812 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


character, but utterly contrary to the nature he had imbibed 
from the customs of his manhood. 

He felt his pistols, and his hands trembled a little as he 
did so, — not the least from fear, but from that restlessness 
and eagerness peculiar to nervous persons placed in a new 
situation. 

“In this country/’ said he to himself, “I have been only 
once robbed in the course of my life. It was then a little my 
fault; for before I took to my pistols, I should have been cer- 
tain they were loaded. To-night I shall be sure to avoid a 
similar blunder; and my pistols have an eloquence in their 
barrels which is exceedingly moving. Humph, another mile- 
stone! These fellows drive well; but we are entering a 
pretty-looking spot for Messieurs the disciples of Robin 
Hood!” 

It was, indeed, a picturesque spot by which the carriage 
was now rapidly whirling. A few miles from Maidenhead, 
on the Henley Road, our readers will probably remember a 
small tract of forest-like land, lying on either side of the 
road. To the left the green waste bears away among the 
trees and bushes; and one skilled in the country may pass 
from that spot, through a landscape as little tenanted as green 
Sherwood was formerly, into the chains of wild common and 
deep beech-woods which border a certain portion of Oxford- 
shire, and contrast so beautifully the general characteristics 
of that county. 

At the time we speak of, the country was even far wilder 
than it is now; and just on that point where the Henley and 
the Reading roads unite was a spot (communicating then with 
the waste land we have described), than which, perhaps, few 
places could be more adapted to the purposes of such true men 
as have recourse to the primary law of nature. Certain it was 
that at this part of the road Mauleverer looked more anxiously 
from his window than he had hitherto done, and apparently 
the increased earnestness of his survey was not altogether 
without meeting its reward. 

About a hundred yards to the left, three dark objects were 
just discernible in the shade; a moment more, and the objects 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 313 

emerging grew into the forms of three men, well mounted, 
and riding at a brisk trot. 

“ Only three!” thought Mauleverer, “that is well;” and 
leaning from the front window with a pistol in either hand, 
Mauleverer cried out to the postboys in a stern tone, “Drive 
on, and recollect what I told you ! — Remember ! ” he added to 
his servant. The postboys scarcely looked round ; but their 
spurs were buried in their horses, and the animals flew on 
like lightning. 

The three strangers made a halt, as if in conference; their 
decision was prompt. Two wheeled round from their com- 
rade, and darted at full gallop by the carriage. Mauleverer’s 
pistol was already protruded from the front window, when to 
his astonishment, and to the utter baffling of his ingenious 
admonition to his drivers, he beheld the two postboys knocked 
from their horses one after the other with a celerity that 
scarcely allowed him an exclamation; and before he had 
recovered his self-possession, the horses taking fright (and 
their fright being skilfully taken advantage of by the high- 
waymen), the carriage was fairly whirled into a ditch on the 
right side of the road, and upset. Meanwhile Smoothson had 
leaped from his station in the front ; and having fired, though 
without effect, at the third robber, who approached menac- 
ingly towards him, he gained the time to open the carriage 
door and extricate his master. 

The moment Mauleverer found himself on terra firma , he 
prepared his courage for offensive measures; and he and 
Smoothson, standing side by side in front of the unfortunate 
vehicle, presented no unformidable aspect to the enemy. The 
two robbers who had so decisively rid themselves of the post- 
boys acted with no less determination towards the horses. 
One of them dismounted, cut the traces, and suffered the 
plunging quadrupeds to go whither they listed. This meas- 
ure was not, however, allowed to be taken with impunity; a 
ball from Mauleverer^ pistol passed through the hat of the 
highwayman with an aim so slightly erring that it whizzed 
among the locks of the astounded hero with a sound that sent 
a terror to his heart, no less from a love of his head than from 


314 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


anxiety for his hair. The shock staggered him for a moment; 
and a second shot from the hands of Mauleverer would have 
probably finished his earthly career, had not the third robber, 
who had hitherto remained almost inactive, thrown himself 
from his horse, which, tutored to such docility, remained per- 
fectly still, and advancing with a bold step and a levelled 
pistol towards Mauleverer and his servant, said in a resolute 
voice, “ Gentlemen, it is useless to struggle; we are well 
armed, and resolved on effecting our purpose. Your persons 
shall be safe if you lay down your arms, and also such part of 
your property as you may particularly wish to retain; but if 
you resist, I cannot answer for your lives ! ” 

Mauleverer had listened patiently to this speech in order 
that he might have more time for adjusting his aim. His 
reply was a bullet, which grazed the side of the speaker and 
tore away the skin, without inflicting any more dangerous 
wound. Muttering a curse upon the error of his aim, and 
resolute to the last when his blood was once up, Mauleverer 
backed one pace, drew his sword, and threw himself into the 
attitude of a champion well skilled in the use of the instru- 
ment he wore. 

But that incomparable personage was in a fair way of ascer- 
taining what happiness in the world to come is reserved for a 
man who has spared no pains to make himself comfortable in 
this. For the two first and most active robbers having fin- 
ished the achievement of the horses, now approached Maul- 
everer ; and the taller of them, still indignant at the late peril 
to his hair, cried out in a stentorian voice, — 

“By Jove! you old fool, if you don’t throw down your 
toasting-fork, I ’ll be the death of you! ” 

The speaker suited the action to the word by cocking an 
immense pistol. Mauleverer stood his ground ; but Smooth- 
son retreated, and stumbling against the wheel of the carriage, 
fell backward ; the next instant, the second highwayman had 
possessed himself of the valet’s pistols, and, quietly seated on 
the fallen man’s stomach, amused himself by inspecting the 
contents of the domestic’s pockets. Mauleverer was now 
alone; and his stubbornness so enraged the tall bully that 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


315 


his hand was already on his trigger, when the third robber, 
whose side Mauleverer’s bullet had grazed, thrust himself 
between the two. 

“Hold, Ned!” said he, pushing back his comrade’s pistol. 
“And you, my lord, whose rashness ought to cost you your 
life, learn that men can rob generously.” So saying, with one 
dexterous stroke from the robber’s riding-whip, Mauleverer’s 
sword flew upwards, and alighted at the distance of ten yards 
from its owner. 

“ Approach now, ” said the victor to his comrades. “ Rifle 
the carriage, and with all despatch! ” 

The tall highwayman hastened to execute this order; and 
the lesser one having satisfactorily finished the inquisition 
into Mr. Smoothson’s pockets, drew forth from his own pouch 
a tolerably thick rope; with this he tied the hands of the 
prostrate valet, moralizing as he wound the rope round and 
round the wrists of the fallen man, in the following edifying 
strain : — 

“Lie still, sir, — lie still, I beseech you! All wise men are 
fatalists ; and no proverb is more pithy than that which says, 

‘ What can’t be cured must be endured.’ Lie still, I tell you! 
Little, perhaps, do you th/ink that you are performing one of 
the noblest functions of humanity; yes, sir, you are tilling the 
pockets of the destitute ; and by my present action I am secur- 
ing you from any weakness of the flesh likely to impede so 
praiseworthy an end, and so hazard the excellence of your 
action. There, sir, your hands are tight, — lie still and 
reflect.” 

As he said this, with three gentle applications of his feet, 
the moralist rolled Mr. Smoothson into the ditch, and has- 
tened to join his lengthy comrade in his pleasing occupation. 

In the interim Mauleverer and the third robber (who, in 
the true spirit of government, remained dignified and inactive 
while his followers plundered what he certainly designed to 
share, if not to monopolize) stood within a few feet of each 
other, face to face. 

Mauleverer had now convinced himself that all endeavour 
to save his property was hopeless, and he had also the con* 


816 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


solation of thinking he had done his best to defend it. He 
therefore bade all his thoughts return to the care of his per- 
son. He adjusted his fur collar around his neck with great 
sang froid , drew on his gloves, and, patting his terrified 
poodle, who sat shivering on its haunches with one paw 
raised and nervously trembling, he said, — 

“You, sir, seem to be a civil person, and I really should 
have felt quite sorry if I had had the misfortune to wound 
you. You are not hurt, I trust. Pray, if I may inquire, 
how am I to proceed? My carriage is in the ditch, and my 
horses by this time are probably at the end of the world.” 

“As for that matter,” said the robber, whose face, like 
those of his comrades, was closely masked in the approved 
fashion of highwaymen of that day, “ I believe you will have 
to walk to Maidenhead, — it is not far, and the night is fine ! ” 

“A very trifling hardship, indeed!” said Mauleverer, iron- 
ically; but his new acquaintance made no reply, nor did he 
appear at all desirous of entering into any further conversa- 
tion with Mauleverer. 

The earl, therefore, after watching the operations of the 
other robbers for some moments, turned on his heel, and 
remained humming an opera tune with dignified indifference 
until the pair had finished rifling the carriage, and seizing 
Mauleverer, proceeded to rifle him. 

With a curled lip and a raised brow, that supreme personage 
suffered himself to be, as the taller robber expressed it, 
“cleaned out.” His watch, his rings, his purse, and his 
snuff-box, all went. It was long since the rascals had cap- 
tured such a booty. 

They had scarcely finished when the postboys, who had now 
begun to look about them, uttered a simultaneous cry, and at 
some distance a wagon was seen heavily approaching. Maul- 
everer really wanted his money, to say nothing of his dia- 
monds ; and so soon as he perceived assistance at hand, a new 
hope darted within him. His sword still lay on the ground; 
he sprang towards it, seized it, uttered a shout for help, and 
threw himself fiercely on the highwayman who had disarmed 
him; but the robber, warding off the blade with his whip, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 317 

retreated to his saddle, which he managed, despite of Maul- 
everer’s lunges, to regain with impunity. 

The other two had already mounted, and within a minute 
afterwards not a vestige of the trio was visible. “This is 
what may fairly be called single blessedness!” said Maul- 
everer, as, dropping his useless sword, he thrust his hands 
into his pockets. 

Leaving our peerless peer to find his way to Maidenhead on 
foot, accompanied (to say nothing of the poodle, by one wag- 
oner, two postboys, and the released Mr. Smoothson, all four 
charming him with their condolences, we follow with our 
story the steps of the three alieni appetentes. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

The rogues were very merry on their booty. They said a thousand things 
that showed the wickedness of their morals. — Gil Bias. 

They fixed on a spot where they made a cave, which was large enough to 
receive them and their horses. This cave was inclosed within a sort of thicket 
of bushes and brambles. From this station they used to issue, etc. — Memoirs 
of Richard Turpin. 

It was not for several minutes after their flight had com- 
menced that any conversation passed between the robbers. 
Their horses flew on like wind; and the country through 
which they rode presented to their speed no other obstacle 
than an occasional hedge, or a short cut through the thick- 
nesses of some leafless beechwood. The stars lent them a 
merry light, and the spirits of two of them at least were fully 
in sympathy with the exhilaration of the pace and the air. 
Perhaps, in the third, a certain presentiment that the present 
adventure would end less merrily than it had begun, con- 
spired, with other causes of gloom, to check that exaltation 
of the blood which generally follows a successful exploit. 

The path which the robbers took wound by the sides of 
long woods or across large tracts of uncultivated land; nor 


318 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


did they encounter anything living by the road, save now and 
then a solitary owl, wheeling its gray body around the skirts 
of the bare woods, or occasionally troops of conies, pursuing 
their sports and enjoying their midnight food in the fields. 

“ Heavens ! ” cried the tall robber, whose incognito we need 
no longer preserve, and who, as our readers are doubtless 
aware, answered to the name of Pepper, — “ heavens ! ” cried 
he, looking upward at the starry skies in a sort of ecstasy, 
“what a jolly life this is! Some fellows like hunting; d — 
it! what hunting is like the road? If there be sport in hunt- 
ing down a nasty fox, how much more is there in hunting 
down a nice, clean nobleman’s carriage! If there be joy in 
getting a brush, how much more is there in getting a purse ! 
If it be pleasant to fly over a hedge in the broad daylight, 
hang me if it be not ten times finer sport to skim it by night, 
— here goes ! Look how the hedges run away from us ! and 
the silly old moon dances about, as if the sight of us put the 
good lady in spirits ! Those old maids are always glad to have 
an eye upon such fine, dashing young fellows.” 

“Ay,” cried the more erudite and sententious Augustus 
Tomlinson, roused by success from his usual philosophical 
sobriety; “no work is so pleasant as night-work, and the 
witches our ancestors burned were in the right to ride out on 
their broomsticks with the owls and the stars. We are their 
successors now, Ned. We are your true fly-by-nights! ” 

“Only,” quoth Ned, “we are a cursed deal more clever than 
they were ; for they played their game without being a bit the 
richer for it, and we — I say, Tomlinson, where the devil 
did you put that red morocco case ? ” 

“Experience never enlightens the foolish,” said Tomlinson, 
“or you would have known, without asking, that I had put it 
in the very safest pocket in my coat. ’Gad, how heavy 
it is! ” 

“Well,” cried Pepper, “I can’t say I wish it were lighter! 
Only think of our robbing my lord twice, and on the same 
road too ! ” 

“I say, Lovett,” exclaimed Tomlinson, “was it not odd that 
we should have stumbled upon our Bath friend so unceremo- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


319 


niously? Lucky for us that we are so strict in robbing in 
masks ! He would not have thought the better of Bath com- 
pany if he had seen our faces.” 

Lovett, or rather Clifford, had hitherto been silent. He 
now turned slowly in his saddle, and said: “As it was, the 
poor devil was very nearly despatched. Long Ned was mak- 
ing short work with him, if I had not interposed ! ” 

“And why did you?” said Ned. 

“Because I will have no killing; it is the curse of the noble 
art of our profession to have passionate professors like thee.” 

“Passionate! ” repeated Ned. “ Well, I am a little choleric, 
I own it; but that is not so great a fault on the road as it 
would be in housebreaking. I don’t know a thing that re- 
quires so much coolness and self-possession as cleaning out a 
house from top to bottom, — quietly and civilly, mind you! ” 
“That is the reason, I suppose, then,” said Augustus, “that 
you altogether renounced that career. Your first adventure 
was house breaking, I think I have heard you say. I confess 
it was a vulgar debut , — not worthy of you ! ” 

“No! Harry Cook seduced me; but the specimen I saw 
that night disgusted me of picking locks; it brings one in 
contact with such low companions. Only think, there was a 
merchant, a rag-merchant, one of the party ! ” 

“Faugh!” said Tomlinson, in solemn disgust. 

“Ay, you may well turn up your lip; I never broke into a 
house again.” 

“Who were your other companions?” asked Augustus. 
“Only Harry Cook , 1 and a very singular woman — ” 

Here Ned’s narrative was interrupted by a dark defile 
through a wood, allowing room for only one horseman at a 
time. They continued this gloomy path for several minutes, 
until at length it brought them to the brink of a large dell, 
overgrown with bushes, and spreading around somewhat in 
the form of a rude semicircle. Here the robbers dismounted, 
and led their reeking horses down the descent. Long Ned, 
who went first, paused at a cluster of bushes, which seemed 
so thick as to defy intrusion, but which, yielding on either 
1 A noted highwayman. 


320 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


side to the experienced hand of the robber, presented what 
appeared the mouth of a cavern. A few steps along the pas- 
sage of this gulf brought them to a door, which, even seen by 
torchlight, would have appeared so exactly similar in colour 
and material to the rude walls on either side as to have 
deceived any unsuspecting eye, and which, in the customary 
darkness brooding over it, might have remained for centuries 
undiscovered. Touching a secret latch, the door opened, and 
the robbers were in the secure precincts of the “Red Cave.” 
It may be remembered that among the early studies of our 
exemplary hero the memoirs of Richard Turpin had formed 
a conspicuous portion ; and it may also be remembered that in 
the miscellaneous adventures of that gentleman nothing had 
more delighted the juvenile imagination of the student than 
the description of the forest cave in which the gallant Turpin 
had been accustomed to conceal himself, his friend, his horse, 

“ And that sweet saint who lay by Turpin’s side ; ” 

or, to speak more domestically, the respectable Mrs. Turpin. 
So strong a hold, indeed, had that early reminiscence fixed 
upon our hero’s mind, that no sooner had he risen to eminence 
among his friends than he had put the project of his childhood 
into execution. He had selected for the scene of his ingenuity 
an admirable spot. In a thinly peopled country, surrounded 
by commons and woods, and yet, as Mr. Robins would say if 
he had to dispose of it by auction, “within an easy ride” of 
populous and well-frequented roads, it possessed all the ad- 
vantages of secrecy for itself and convenience for depredation. 
Very few of the gang, and those only who had been employed 
in its construction, were made acquainted with the secret of 
this cavern; and as our adventurers rarely visited it, and only 
on occasions of urgent want or secure concealment, it had con- 
tinued for more than two years undiscovered and unsuspected. 

The cavern, originally hollowed by nature, owed but little 
to the decorations of art; nevertheless, the roughness of the 
walls was concealed by a rude but comfortable arras of mat- 
ting; four or five of such seats as the robbers themselves could 
construct were drawn around a small but bright wood-fire, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


321 


which, as there was no chimney, spread a thin volume of 
smoke over the apartment. The height of the cave, added to 
the universal reconciler (custom), prevented, however, this 
evil from being seriously unpleasant; and, indeed, like the 
tenants of an Irish cabin, perhaps the inmates attached a 
degree of comfort to a circumstance which was coupled with 
their dearest household associations. A table, formed of a 
board coarsely planed, and supported by four legs of irregular 
size, made equal by the introduction of blocks or wedges be- 
tween the legs and the floor, stood warming its uncouth self 
by the fire. At one corner a covered cart made a conspicuous 
article of furniture, no doubt useful either in conveying plun- 
der or provisions; beside the wheels were carelessly thrown 
two or three coarse carpenter’s tools, and the more warlike 
utilities of a blunderbuss, a rifle, and two broadswords. In 
the other corner was an open cupboard, containing rows of 
pewter platters, mugs, etc. Opposite the fireplace, which was 
to the left of the entrance, an excavation had been turned into 
a dormitory; and fronting the entrance was a pair of broad, 
strong wooden steps, ascending to a large hollow about eight 
feet from the ground. This was the entrance to the stables; 
and as soon as their owners released the reins of the horses, 
the docile animals proceeded one by one leisurely up the 
steps, in the manner of quadrupeds educated at the public 
seminary of Astley’s, and disappeared within the aperture. 

These steps, when drawn up, — which, however, from their 
extreme clumsiness, required the united strength of two ordi- 
nary men, and was not that instantaneous work which it 
should have been, — made the place above a tolerably strong 
hold; for the wall was perfectly perpendicular and level, and 
it was only by placing his hands upon the ledge, and so lift- 
ing himself gymnastically upward, that an active assailant 
could have reached the eminence, — a work which defenders 
equally active, it may easily be supposed, would not be likely 
to allow. 

This upper cave — for our robbers paid more attention to 
their horses than themselves, as the nobler animals of the two 
species — was evidently fitted up with some labour. The 

21 


322 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


stalls were rudely divided, the litter of dry fern was clean, 
troughs were filled with oats, and a large tub had been sup- 
plied from a pond at a little distance. A cart-harness and 
some old wagoners’ frocks were fixed on pegs to the wall; 
while at the far end of these singular stables was a door 
strongly barred, and only just large enough to admit the body 
of a man. The confederates had made it an express law never 
to enter their domain by this door, or to use it, except for 
the purpose of escape, should the cave ever be attacked; in 
which case, while one or two defended the entrance from the 
inner cave, another might unbar the door, and as it opened 
upon the thickest part of the wood, through which with great 
ingenuity a labyrinthine path had been cut, not easily tracked 
by ignorant pursuers, these precautions of the highwaymen 
had provided a fair hope of at least a temporary escape from 
any invading enemies. 

Such were the domestic arrangements of the Red Cave; and 
it will be conceded that at least some skill had been shown in 
the choice of the spot, if there were a lack of taste in its 
adornments. 

While the horses were performing their nightly ascent, our 
three heroes, after securing the door, made at once to the fire. 
And there, 0 reader! they were greeted in welcome by one — 
an old and revered acquaintance of thine — whom in such a 
scene it will equally astound and wound thee to re-behold. 

Know, then — But first we will describe to thee the occu- 
pation and the garb of the august personage to whom we 
allude. Bending over a large gridiron, daintily bespread 
with steaks of the fatted rump, the individual stood, with 
his right arm bared above the elbow, and his right hand 
grasping that mimic trident known unto gastronomers by the 
monosyllable “fork.” His wigless head was adorned with a 
cotton nightcap. His upper vestment was discarded, and 
a whitish apron flowed gracefully down his middle man. His 
stockings were ungartered, and permitted between the knee 
and the calf interesting glances of the rude carnal. One list 
shoe and one of leathern manufacture cased his ample feet. 
Enterprise, or the noble glow of his present culinary profes- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


828 


sion, spread a yet rosier blush over a countenance early tinged 
by generous libations, and from beneath the curtain of his 
pallid eyelashes his large and rotund orbs gleamed dazzlingly 
on the new comers. Such, 0 reader! was the aspect and the 
occupation of the venerable man whom we have long since 
taught thee to admire; such, alas for the mutabilities of earth! 
was — A new chapter only can contain the name. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


Caliban. Hast thou not dropped from heaven? 

Tempest. 


Peter MacGrawler 


324 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

God bless our King and Parliament, 

And send he may make such knaves repent ! 

Loyal Songs against the Rump Parliament. 

Ho, treachery ! my guards, my cimeter ! 

Byron. 

When the irreverent Mr. Pepper had warmed his hands 
sufficiently to be able to transfer them from the fire, he 
lifted the right palm, and with an indecent jocularity of 
spirits, accosted the ci-devant ornament of “The Asinseum” 
with a sounding slap on his back, or some such part of his 
conformation. 

' “ Ah, old boy ! ” said he, “ is this the way you keep house 
for us? A fire not large enough to roast a nit, and a supper 
too small to fatten him beforehand! But how the deuce 
should you know how to provender for gentlemen? You 
thought you were in Scotland, I ’ll be bound! ” 

“Perhaps he did when he looked upon you, Ned!” said 
Tomlinson, gravely ; “ ’t is but rarely out of Scotland that a 
man can see so big a rogue in so little a compass! ” 

Mr. MacGrawler, into whose eyes the palmistry of Long 
Ned had brought tears of sincere feeling, and who had hith- 
erto been rubbing the afflicted part, now grumbled forth, — 
“You may say what you please, Mr. Pepper, but it is not 
often in my country that men of genius are seen performing 
the part of cook to robbers ! ” 

“No!” quoth Tomlinson, “they are performing the more 
profitable part of robbers to cooks, eh! ” 

“Damme, you’re out,” cried Long Ned, — “for in that 
country there are either no robbers, because there is nothing 
to rob ; or the inhabitants are all robbers, who have plundered 
one another, and made away with the booty ! ” 

“May the de’il catch thee! ” said MacGrawler, stung to the 
quick, — for, like all Scots, he was a patriot ; much on the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 325 

same principle as a woman who has the worst children makes 
the best mother. 

“The de’il,” said Ned, mimicking the “ silver sound,” as 
Sir W. Scott had been pleased facetiously to call the “ moun- 
tain tongue ” (the Scots in general seem to think it is silver, 
they keep it so carefully) “the de’il, — MacDeil , youjnean, — 
sure, the gentleman must have been a Scotchman ! ” 

The sage grinned in spite ; but remembering the patience of 
Epictetus when a slave, and mindful also of the strong arm 
of Long Ned, he curbed his temper, and turned the beefsteaks 
with his fork. 

“Well, Ned,” said Augustus, throwing himself into a chair, 
which he drew to the fire, while he gently patted the huge 
limbs of Mr. Pepper, as if to admonish him that they were 
not so transparent as glass, “let us look at the fire; and, by 
the by, it is your turn to see to the horses.” 

“Plague on it! ” cried Ned; “it is always my turn, I think.. 
Holla, you Scot of the pot! can’t you prove that I groomed 
the beasts last? I ’ll give you a crown to do it.” 

The wise MacGrawler pricked up his ears. 

“ A crown ! ” said he, — “a crown ! Do you mean to insult 
me, Mr. Pepper? But, to be sure, you did see to the horses 
last; and this worthy gentleman, Mr. Tomlinson, must re- 
member it too.” 

“How, I!” cried Augustus; “you are mistaken, and I’ll, 
give you half a guinea to prove it.” 

MacGrawler opened his eyes larger and larger, even as you- 
may see a small circle in the water widen into enormity, if 
you disturb the equanimity of the surface by the obtrusion of 
a foreign substance. 

“Half a guinea!” said he; “nay, nay, you joke. I ’m not 
mercenary. You think I am! Pooh, pooh! you are mistaken; 
I ’m a man who means weel , a man of veracity, and will speak 
the truth in spite of all the half-guineas in the world. But 
certainly, now I begin to think of it, Mr. Tomlinson did see 
to the creatures last; and, Mr. Pepper, it is your turn.” 

“ A very Daniel ! ” said Tomlinson, chuckling in his usual 
dry manner. “Ned, don’t you hear the horses neigh?” 


326 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“ Oh, hang the horses ! ” said the volatile Pepper, forgetting 
everything else, as he thrust his hands in his pockets, and felt 
the gains of the night ; “ let us first look to our winnings ! ” 

So saying, he marched towards the table, and emptied his 
pockets thereon. Tomlinson, nothing loath, followed the 
example. Heavens! what exclamations of delight issued 
from the scoundrels’ lips, as, one by one, they inspected 
their new acquisitions! 

“Here ’s a magnificent creature! ” cried Ned, handling that 
superb watch studded with jewels which the poor earl had 
once before unavailingly redeemed, — “a repeater, by Jove! ” 
“I hope not,” said the phlegmatic Augustus; “repeaters 
will not tell well for your conversation, Ned! But, powers 
that be! look at this ring, — a diamond of the first water! ” 
“Oh, the sparkler! it makes one’s mouth water as much as 
itself. ’Sdeath, here’s a precious box for a sneezer, — a 
picture inside, and rubies outside! The old fellow had excel- 
lent taste; it would charm him to see how pleased we are 
with his choice of jewelry ! ” 

“Talking of jewelry,” said Tomlinson, “I had almost for- 
gotten the morocco case. Between you and me, I imagine we 
have a prize there; it looks like a jewel casket ! ” 

So saying, the robber opened that case which on many a 
gala day had lent lustre to the polished person of Mauleverer. 
Oh, reader, the burst of rapture that ensued! Imagine it! 
we cannot express it. Like the Grecian painter, we drop a 
veil over emotions too deep for words. 

“But here,” said Pepper, when they had almost exhausted 
their transports at sight of the diamonds, — “here ’s a purse, 
— fifty guineas ! And what ’s this? Notes, by Jupiter ! We 
must change them to-morrow before they are stopped. Curse 
those fellows at the Bank ! they are always imitating us ; we stop 
their money, and they don’t lose a moment in stopping it too. 
Three hundred pounds ! Captain, what say you to our luck? ” 
Clifford had sat gloomily looking on during the operations 
of the robbers; he now, assuming a correspondent cheerful- 
ness of manner, made a suitable reply, and after some general 
conversation the work of division took place. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


327 


“We are the best arithmeticians in the world,” said Augus- 
tus, as he pouched his share ; “ addition, subtraction, division, 
reduction, — we have them all as pat as ‘ The Tutor’s Assist- 
ant ; ’ and, what is better, we make them all applicable to the 
Rule of Three.” 

“You have left out multiplication! ” said Clifford, smiling. 
“Ah! because that works differently. The other rules apply 
to the specie-s of the kingdom ; but as for multiplication, we 
multiply, I fear, no species but our own ! ” 

“ Fie, gentlemen ! ” said MacGrawler, austerely, — for there 
is a wonderful decorum in your true Scotsmen. “Actions are 
trifles ; nothing can be cleaner than their woi'ds ! ” 

“Oh, you thrust in your wisdom, do you?” said Ned. “I 
suppose you want your part of the booty ! ” 

“Part!” said the subtilizing Tomlinson. “He has nine 
times as many parts as we have already. Is he not a critic, 
and has he not the parts of speech at his fingers’ end? ” 

“Nonsense!” said MacGrawler, instinctively holding up 
his hands, with the fork dropping between the outstretched 
fingers of the right palm. 

“Nonsense yourself,” cried Ned; 11 you have a share in what 
you never took! A pretty fellow, truly! Mind your busi- 
ness, Mr. Scot, and fork nothing but the beefsteaks ! ” 

With this Ned turned to the stables, and soon disappeared 
among the horses; but Clifford, eying the disappointed and 
eager face of the culinary sage, took ten guineas from his own 
share, and pushed them towards his quondam tutor. 

“ There ! ” said he, emphatically, 

“Nay, nay,” grunted MacGrawler; “I don’t want the 
money, — it is my way to scorn such dross!” So saying, 
he pocketed the coins, and turned, muttering to himself, to 
the renewal of his festive preparations. 

Meanwhile a whispered conversation took place between 
Augustus and the captain, and continued till Ned returned. 

“ And the night’s viands smoked along the board ! ” 

Souls of Don Raphael and Ambrose Lamela, what a charm- 
ing thing it is to be a rogue for a little time! How merry 


328 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


men are when they have cheated their brethren! Your inno- 
cent milksops never made so jolly a supper as did our heroes 
of the way. Glifford, perhaps acted a part, but the hilarity 
of his comrades was unfeigned. It was a delicious contrast, 
— the boisterous “ha, ha! ” of Long Ned, and the secret, dry, 
calculating chuckle of Augustus Tomlinson. It was Rabelais 
against Voltaire. They united only in the objects of their 
jests, and foremost of those objects (wisdom is ever the but 
of the frivolous!) was the great Peter MacGrawler. 

The graceless dogs were especially merry upon the subject 
of the sage’s former occupation. 

“Come, Mac, you carve this ham,” said Ned; “you have 
had practice in cutting up.” 

The learned man whose name was thus disrespectfully 
abbreviated proceeded to' perform what he was bid. He was 
about to sit down for that purpose, when Tomlinson slyly 
subtracted his chair, — the sage fell. 

“No jests at MacGrawler,” said the malicious Augustus; 
“whatever be his faults as a critic, you see that he is 
well grounded, and he gets at once to the bottom of a 
subject. Mac, suppose your next work be entitled a Tail 
of Woe!” 

Men who have great minds are rarely flexible, — they do 
not take a jest readily; so it was with MacGrawler. He rose 
in a violent rage; and had the robbers been more penetrat- 
ing than they condescended to be, they might have noticed 
something dangerous in his eye. As it was, Clifford, who 
had often before been the protector of his tutor, interposed 
in his behalf, drew the sage a seat near to himself, and filled 
his plate for him. It was interesting to see this deference 
from Power to Learning! It was Alexander doing homage 
to Aristotle! 

“There is only one thing I regret,” cried Ned, with his 
mouth full, “about the old lord, — it was a thousand pities 
we did not make him dance ! I remember the day, Captain, 
when you would have insisted on it. What a merry fellow 
you were once ! Do you recollect, one bright moonlight night, 
just like the present, for instance, when we were doing duty 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 329 

near Staines, how you swore every person we stopped, above 
fifty years old, should dance a minuet with you?” 

“ Ay ! ” added Augustus, “ and the first was a bishop in a 
white wig. Faith, how stiffly his lordship jigged it! And 
how gravely Lovett bowed to him, with his hat off, when it 
was all over, and returned him his watch and ten guineas, — 
it was worth the sacrifice ! ” 

“And the next was an old maid of quality,” said Ned, “as 
lean as a lawyer. Don’t you remember how she curvetted? ” 

“To be sure,” said Tomlinson; “and you very wittily called 
her a hop- pole ! ” 

“ How delighted she was with the captain’s suavity ! When 
he gave her back her earrings and aigrette , she bade him with 
a tender sigh keep them for her sake, — ha! ha! ” 

“ And the third was a beau ! ” cried Augustus ; “ and Lovett 
surrendered his right of partnership to me. Do you recollect 
how I danced his beauship into the ditch? Ah! we were mad 
fellows then ; but we get sated — biases, as the French say — 
as we grow older! ” 

“We look only to the main chance now,” said Ned. 

“Avarice supersedes enterprise,” added the sententious 
Augustus. 

“ And our captain takes to wine with an li after the w ! ” 
continued the metaphorical Ned. 

“Come, we are melancholy,” said Tomlinson, tossing off a 
bumper. “Methinks we are really growing old, we shall 
repent soon, and the next step will be — hanging ! ” 

“’Fore Gad!” said Ned, helping himself, “don’t be so 
croaking. There are two classes of maligned gentry, who 
should always be particular to avoid certain colours in dress- 
ing; I hate to see a true boy in black, or a devil in blue. 
But here ’s my last glass to-night! I am confoundedly sleepy, 
and we rise early to-morrow.” 

“Right, Ned,” said Tomlinson; “give us a song before you 
retire, and let it be that one which Lovett composed the last 
time we were here.” 

Ned, always pleased with an opportunity of displaying 
himself, cleared his voice and complied. 


380 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


A DITTY FROM SHERWOOD. 


i. 

Laugh with us at the prince and the palace, 

In the wild wood-life there is better cheer; 

Would you hoard your mirth from your neighbour’s malice, 
Gather it up in our garners here. 

Some kings their wealth from their subjects wring, 

While by their foes they the poorer wax ; 

Free go the men of the wise wood-king, 

And it is only our foes we tax. 

Leave the cheats of trade to the shrewd gude-wife : 

Let the old be knaves at ease ; 

Away with the tide of that dashing life 
Which is stirred by a constant breeze ! 


ii. 

Laugh with us when you hear deceiving 
And solemn rogues tell you what knaves we be ; 

Commerce and law have a method of thieving 
Worse than a stand at the outlaw’s tree. 

Say, will the maiden we love despise 
Gallants at least to each other true? 

I grant that we trample on legal ties, 

But I have heard that Love scorns them too, 

Courage, then, — courage, ye jolly boys, 

Whom the fool with the knavish rates : 

Oh ! who that is loved by the world enjoys 
Half as much as the man it hates? 

“Bravissimo, Ned!” cried Tomlinson, rapping the table; 
“bravissimo! Your voice is superb to-night, and your song 
admirable. Really, Lovett, it does your poetical genius great 
credit; quite philosophical, upon my honour.” 

“Bravissimo! ” said MacGrawler, nodding his head awfully. 
“ Mr. Pepper’s voice is as sweet as a bagpipe ! Ah ! such a song 
would have been invaluable to 1 The Asinseum,’ when I had 
the honour to — ” 

“Be Vicar of Bray to that establishment,” interrupted 
Tomlinson. “Pray, MacGrawler, why do they call Edinburgh 
the Modern Athens?” 

“Because of the learned and great men it produces,” 
returned MacGrawler, with conscious pride. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


831 


“Pooh! pooh! — you are thinking of ancient Athens. Your 
city is called the modern Athens because you are all so like 
the modern Athenians, — the greatest scoundrels imaginable, 
unless travellers belie them.” 

“Nay,” interrupted Ned, who was softened by the applause 
of the critic, “ Mac is a good fellow, spare him. Gentlemen, 
your health. I am going to bed, and I suppose you will not 
tarry long behind me.” 

“Trust us for that,” answered Tomlinson; “the captain 
and I will consult on the business of the morrow, and join 
you in the twinkling of a bedpost, as it has been shrewdly 
expressed.” 

Ned yawned his last “ good-night, ” and disappeared within 
the dormitory. MacGrawler, yawning also, but with a graver 
yawn, as became his wisdom, betook himself to the duty of 
removing the supper paraphernalia: after bustling soberly 
about for some minutes, he let down a press-bed in the corner 
of the cave (for he did not sleep in the robbers’ apartment), 
and undressing himself, soon appeared buried in the bosom of 
Morpheus. But the chief and Tomlinson, drawing their seats 
nearer to the dying embers, defied the slothful god, and entered 
with low tones into a close and anxious commune. 

“ So, then,” said Augustus, “now that you have realized suffi- 
cient funds for your purpose, you will really desert us ? Have 
you well weighed the pros and cons ? Remember that nothing 
is so dangerous to our state as reform; the moment a man 
grows honest, the gang forsake him; the magistrate misses 
his fee; the informer peaches; and the recusant hangs.” 

“ I have well weighed all this,” answered Clifford, “ and have 
decided on my course. I have only tarried till my means 
could assist my will. With my share of our present and late 
booty, I shall betake myself to the Continent. Prussia gives 
easy trust and ready promotion to all who will enlist in her 
service. But this language, my dear friend, seems strange 
from your lips. Surely you will join me in my separation 
from the corps ? What ! you shake your head ! Are you not 
the same Tomlinson who at Bath agreed with me that we were 
in danger from the envy of our comrades, and that retreat had 


332 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


become necessary to our safety? Nay, was not this your main 
argument for our matrimonial expedition?” 

“Why, look you, dear Lovett,” said Augustus, “we are all 
blocks of matter, formed from the atoms of custom ; in other 
words, we are a mechanism, to which habit is the spring. 
What could I do in an honest career? I am many years older 
than you. I have lived as a rogue till I have no other nature 
than roguery. I doubt if I should not be a coward were I to 
turn soldier. I am sure I should be the most consummate of ras- 
cals were I to affect to be honest. No : I mistook myself when 
I talked of separation. I must e’en jog on with my old com- 
rades, and in my old ways, till I jog into the noose hempen 
or — melancholy alternative ! — the noose matrimonial.” 

“This is mere folly,” said Clifford, from whose nervous and 
masculine mind habits were easily shaken. “We have not for 
so many years discarded all the servile laws of others, to be 
the abject slaves of our own weaknesses. Come, my dear 
fellow, rouse yourself. Heaven knows, were I to succumb 
to the feebleness of my own heart, I should be lost indeed. 
And perhaps, wrestle I ever so stoutly, I do not wrestle away 
that which clings within me, and will kill me, though by 
inches. But let us not be cravens, and suffer fate to drown 
us rather than swim. In a word, fly with me ere it be too 
late. A smuggler’s vessel waits me off the coast of Dorset: 
in three days from this I sail. Be my companion. We can 
both rein a fiery horse, and wield a good sword. As long as 
men make war one against another, those accomplishments 
will prevent their owner from starving, or — ” 

“If employed in the field, not the road,” interrupted 
Tomlinson, with a smile, — “ from hanging. But it cannot 
be ! I wish you all joy, all success in your career. You are 
young, bold, and able; and you always had a loftier spirit 
than I have. Knave I am, and knave I must be to the end of 
the chapter ! ” 

“ As you will, ” said Clifford, who was not a man of many 
words, but he spoke with reluctance : “ if so, I must seek my 
fortune alone.” 

“When do you leave us? ” asked Tomlinson. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 833 

“ To-morrow, before noon. I shall visit London for a few 
hours, and then start at once for the coast.” 

“ London!” exclaimed Tomlinson; “what, the very den of 
danger? Pooh! you do not know what you say: or do you 
think it filial to caress Mother Lobkins before you depart? ” 

“Not that,” answered Clifford. “I have already ascer- 
tained that she is above the reach of all want; and her days, 
poor soul! cannot, I fear, be many. In all probability she 
would scarcely recognize me; for her habits cannot much have 
improved her memory. Would I could say as much for her 
neighbours! Were I to be seen in the purlieus of low thiev- 
ery, you know, as well as I do, that some stealer of kerchiefs 
would turn informer against the notorious Captain Lovett.” 

“What, then, takes you to town? Ah! you turn away your 
face. I guess! Well, Love has ruined many a hero before; 
may you not be the worse for his godship! ” 

Clifford did not answer, and the conversation made a sudden 
and long pause; Tomlinson broke it. 

“Do you know, Lovett,” said he, “though I have as little 
heart as most men, yet I feel for you more than I could have 
thought it possible. I would fain join you; there is devilish 
good tobacco in Germany, I believe; and, after all, there is 
not so much difference between the life of a thief and of a 
soldier.” 

“Do profit by so sensible a remark,” said Clifford. “Re- 
flect ! how certain of destruction is the path you now tread ; 
the gallows and the hulks are the only goals ! ” 

“The prospects are not pleasing, I allow,” said Tomlinson; 
“ nor is it desirable to be preserved for another century in the 
immortality of a glass case in Surgeons’ Hall, grinning from 
ear to ear, as if one had made the merriest finale imaginable. 
Well ! I will sleep on it, and you shall have my answer to- 
morrow; but poor Ned?” 

“Would he not join us?” 

“Certainly not; his neck is made for a rope, and his mind 
for the Old Bailey. There is no hope for him; yet he is an 
excellent fellow. We must not even tell him of our meditated 
desertion.” 


384 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“By no means. I shall leave a letter to our London chief; 
it will explain all. And now to bed. I look to your compan- 
ionship as settled.” 

“ Humph ! ” said Augustus Tomlinson. 

So ended the conference of the robbers. About an hour 
after it had ceased, and when no sound save the heavy breath 
of Long Ned broke the stillness of the night, the intelligent 
countenance of Peter MacGrawler slowly elevated itself from 
the lonely pillow on which it had reclined. 

By degrees the back of the sage stiffened into perpendicu- 
larity, and he sat for a few moments erect on his seat of 
honour, apparently in listening deliberation. Satisfied with 
the deep silence that, save the solitary interruption we have 
specified, reigned around, the learned disciple of Vatel rose 
gently from the bed, hurried on his clothes, stole on tiptoe to 
the door, unbarred it with a noiseless hand, and vanished. 
Sweet reader ! while thou art wondering at his absence, sup- 
pose we account for his appearance. 

One evening Clifford and his companion Augustus had been 
enjoying the rational amusement at Ranelagh, and were just 
leaving that celebrated place when they were arrested by a 
crowd at the entrance. That crowd was assembled round 
a pickpocket; and that pickpocket — 0 virtue, 0 wisdom, 0 
Asinseum! — was Peter MacGrawler! We have before said 
that Clifford was possessed of a good mien and an imposing 
manner, and these advantages were at that time especially 
effectual in preserving our Orbilius from the pump. No 
sooner did Clifford recognize the magisterial face of the 
sapient Scot, than he boldly thrust himself into the middle 
of the crowd, and collaring the enterprising citizen who had 
collared MacGrawler, declared himself ready to vouch for the 
honesty of the very respectable person whose identity had 
evidently been so grossly mistaken. Augustus, probably fore- 
seeing some ingenious ruse of his companion, instantly sec- 
onded the defence. The mob, who never descry any difference 
between impudence and truth, gave way ; a constable came up, 
took part with the friend of two gentlemen so unexceptionally 
dressed; our friends walked off; the crowd repented of their 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


835 


precipitation, and by way of amends ducked the gentleman 
whose pockets had been picked. It was in vain for him to 
defend himself, for he had an impediment in his speech; and 
Messieurs the mob, having ducked him once for his guilt, 
ducked him a second time for his embarrassment. 

In the interim Clifford had withdrawn his quondam Mentor 
to the asylum of a coffee-house; and while MacGrawler’s soul 
expanded itself by wine, he narrated the causes of his dilemma. 
It seems that that incomparable journal “ The Asinseum,” de- 
spite a series of most popular articles upon the writings of 
“ Aulus Prudentius, ” to which were added an exquisite string 
of dialogues, written in a tone of broad humour, namely, broad 
Scotch (with Scotchmen it is all the same thing), despite 
these invaluable miscellanies, to say nothing of some glorious 
political articles, in which it was clearly proved to the satis- 
faction of the rich, that the less poor devils eat the better for 
their constitutions, — despite, we say, these great acquisitions 
to British literature, “The Asinusem” tottered, fell, buried 
its bookseller, and crushed its author. MacGrawler only, — 
escaping, like Theodore from the enormous helmet of Otranto, 
— MacGrawler only survived. “Love,” says Sir Philip Sid- 
ney. “ makes a man see better than a pair of spectacles.” Love 
of life has a very different effect on the optics, — it makes 
a man wofully dim of inspection, and sometimes causes him to 
see his own property in another man’s purse! This deceptio 
visus, did it impose upon Peter MacGrawler? He went to 
Ranelagh. Reader, thou knowest the rest! 

Wine and the ingenuity of the robbers having extorted this 
narrative from MacGrawler, the barriers of superfluous deli- 
cacy were easily done away with. 

Our heroes offered to the sage an introduction to their club; 
the offer was accepted; and MacGrawler, having been first 
made drunk, was next made a robber. The gang engaged him 
in various little matters, in which we grieve to relate that 
though his intentions were excellent, his success was so ill 
as thoroughly to enrage his employers; nay, they were about 
at one time, when they wanted to propitiate justice, to hand 
him over to the secular power, when Clifford interposed in 


336 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


his behalf. From a robber the sage dwindled into a drudge ; 
menial offices (the robbers, the lying rascals, declared that 
such offices were best fitted to the genius of his country !) suc- 
ceeded to noble exploits, and the worst of robbers became the 
best of cooks. How vain is all wisdom but that of long expe- 
rience! Though Clifford was a sensible and keen man, though 
he knew our sage to be a knave, he never dreamed he could be 
a traitor. He thought him too indolent to be malicious, and 
— short-sighted humanity ! — too silly to be dangerous. He 
trusted the sage with the secret of the cavern ; and Augustus, 
who was a bit of an epicure, submitted, though forebodingly, 
to the choice, because of the Scotchman’s skill in broiling. 

But MacGrawler, like Brutus, concealed a scheming heart 
under a stolid guise. The apprehension of the noted Lovett 
had become a matter of serious desire; the police was no 
longer to be bribed, nay, they were now eager to bribe. Mac- 
Grawler had watched his time, sold his chief, and was now 
on the road to Reading to meet and to guide to the cavern 
Mr. Nabbem of Bow Street and four of his attendants. 

Having thus, as rapidly as we were able, traced the 
causes which brought so startlingly before your notice the 
most incomparable of critics, we now, reader, return to our 
robbers. 

“ Hist, Lovett ! ” said Tomlinson, half asleep, “ methought 
I heard something in the outer cave.” 

“ It is the Scot, I suppose, ” answered Clifford : “ you saw, 
of course, to the door?” 

“ To be sure ! ” muttered Tomlinson, and in two minutes 
more he was asleep. 

Not so Clifford: many and anxious thoughts kept him 
waking. At one while, when he anticipated the opening 
to a new career, somewhat of the stirring and high spirit 
which still moved amidst the guilty and confused habits of 
his mind made his pulse feverish and his limbs restless; at 
another time, an agonizing remembrance, — the remembrance 
of Lucy in all her charms, her beauty, her love, her tender 
and innocent heart, — Lucy all perfect, and lost to him for- 
ever, — banished every other reflection, and only left him the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


337 


sick sensation of despondency and despair. “What avails 
my struggle for a better name?” he thought. “ Whatever my 
future lot, she can never share it. My punishment is fixed, 
— it is worse than a death of shame; it is a life without hope ! 
Every moment I feel, and shall feel to the last, the pressure 
of a chain that may never be broken or loosened ! And yet, 
fool that I am! I cannot leave this country without seeing 
her again, without telling her that I have really looked my 
last. But have I not twice told her that? Strange fatality! 
But twice have I spoken to her of love, and each time it was 
to tear myself from her at the moment of my confession. And 
even now something that I have no power to resist compels 
me to the same idle and weak indulgence. Does destiny urge 
me? Ay, perhaps to my destruction! Every hour a thousand 
deaths encompass me. I have now obtained all for which I 
seemed to linger. I have won, by a new crime, enough to 
bear me to another land, and to provide me there a soldier’s 
destiny. I should not lose an hour in flight, yet I rush into 
the nest of my enemies, only for one unavailing word with 
her ; and this, too, after I have already bade her farewell ! Is 
this fate? If it be so, what matters it? I no longer care for a 
life which, after all, I should reform in vain if I could not 
reform it for her ; yet — yet, selfish and lost that I am ! will 
it be nothing to think hereafter that I have redeemed her from 
the disgrace of having loved an outcast and a felon? If I can 
obtain honour, will it not, in my own heart at least, — will it 
not reflect, however dimly and distantly, upon her?” 

Such, bewildered, unsatisfactory, yet still steeped in the 
colours of that true love which raises even the lowest, were 
the midnight meditations of Clifford;, they terminated, towards 
the morning, in an uneasy and fitful slumber. From this he 
was awakened by a loud yawn from the throat of Long Ned, 
who was always the earliest riser of his set. 

“ Hullo ! ” said he, “ it is almost daybreak ; and if we want 
to cash our notes and to move the old lord’s jewels, we should 
already be on the start.” 

“A plague on you!” said Tomlinson, from under cover of 
his woollen nightcap; “it was but this instant that I was 

22 


338 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


dreaming you were going to be hanged, and now you wake me 
in the pleasantest part of the dream ! ” 

“You be shot! ” said Ned, turning one leg out of bed; “by 
the by, you took more than your share last night, for you 
owed me three guineas for our last game at cribbage! You ’ll 
please to pay me before we part to-day : short accounts make 
long friends ! ” 

“However true that maxim may be,” returned Tomlinson, 
“ I know one much truer, — namely, long friends will make 
short accounts! You must ask Jack Ketch this day month if 
I ’m wrong! ” 

“That’s what you call wit, I suppose!” retorted Ned, as 
he now, struggling into his inexpressibles, felt his way into 
the outer cave. 

“ What, ho, Mac ! ” cried he, as he went, “ stir those bobbins 
of thine, which thou art pleased to call legs ; strike a light, 
and be d — d to you ! ” 

“A light for you” said Tomlinson, profanely, as he reluc- 
tantly left his couch, “will indeed be a ‘light to lighten the 
Gentiles!”’ 

“Why, Mac, Mac!” shouted Ned, “why don’t you answer? 
faith, I think the Scot ’s dead ! ” 

“Seize your men! — Yield, sirs!” cried a stern, sudden 
voice from the gloom; and at that instant two dark lanterns 
were turned, and their light streamed full upon the astounded 
forms of Tomlinson and his gaunt comrade ! In the dark 
shade of the background four or five forms were also indis- 
tinctly visible ; and the ray of the lanterns glimmered on the 
blades of cutlasses and the barrels of weapons still less easily 
resisted. 

Tomlinson was the first to recover his self-possession. The 
light just gleamed upon the first step of the stairs leading to 
the stables, leaving the rest in shadow. He made one stride 
to the place beside the cart, where, we have said, lay some of 
the robbers’ weapons; he had been anticipated, — the weapons 
were gone. The next moment Tomlinson had sprung up the 
steps. 

“Lovett! Lovett! Lovett! ” shouted he. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


339 


The captain, who had followed his comrades into the cavern, 
was already in the grasp of two men. From few ordinary 
mortals, however, could any two be selected as fearful odds 
against such a man as Clifford, — a man in whom a much 
larger share of sinews and muscle than is usually the lot 
even of the strong had been hardened, by perpetual exercise, 
into a consistency and iron firmness which linked power and 
activity into a union scarcely less remarkable than that im- 
mortalized in the glorious beauty of the sculptured gladiator. 
His right hand is upon the throat of one assailant; his left 
locks, as in a vice, the wrist of the other; you have scarcely 
time to breathe! The former is on the ground, the pistol of 
the latter is wrenched from his grip, Clifford is on the step; 
a ball — another — whizzes by him ; he is by the side of the 
faithful Augustus! 

“Open the secret door!” whispered Clifford to his friend; 
“I will draw up the steps alone.” 

Scarcely had he spoken, before the steps were already, but 
slowly, ascending beneath the desperate strength of the 
robber. Meanwhile Ned was struggling, as he best might, 
with two sturdy officers, who appeared loath to use their 
weapons without an absolute necessity, and who endeavoured, 
by main strength, to capture and detain their antagonist. 

“Look well to the door!” cried the voice of the principal 
officer, “and hang out more light! ” 

Two or three additional lanterns were speedily brought 
forward; and over the whole interior of the cavern a dim 
but sufficient light now rapidly circled, giving to the scene 
and to the combatants a picturesque and wild appearance. 

The quick eye of the head-officer descried in an instant the 
rise of the steps, and the advantage the robbers were thereby 
acquiring. He and two of his men threw themselves forward, 
seized the ladder, if so it may be called, dragged it once more 
to the ground, and ascended. But Clifford, grasping with 
both hands the broken shaft of a cart that lay in reach, 
received the foremost invader with a salute that sent him 
prostrate and senseless back among his companions. The 
second shared the same fate: and the stout leader of the 


340 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


enemy, who, like a true general, had kept himself in the rear, 
paused now in the middle of the steps, dismayed alike by 
the reception of his friends and the athletic form towering 
above, with raised weapons and menacing attitude. Perhaps 
that moment seemed to the judicious Mr. Nabbem more fa- 
vourable to parley than to conflict. He cleared his throat, and 
thus addressed the foe : — 

“You, sir, Captain Lovett, alias Howard, alias Jackson, 
alias Cavendish, alias Solomons, alias Devil, — for I knows 
you well, and could swear to you with half an eye, in your 
clothes or without, — you lay down your club there, and let 
me come alongside of you, and you ’ll find me as gentle as a 
lamb; for I ’ve been used to gemmen all my life, and I knows 
how to treat ’em when I has ’em! ” 

“But if I wdll not let you ‘come alongside of me,’ what 
then? ” 

“ Why, I must send one of these here pops through your 
skull, that ’s all! ” 

“Nay, Mr. Nabbem, that would be too cruel! You surely 
would not harm one who has such an esteem for you? Don’t 
you remember the manner in which I brought you off from 
Justice Burnflat, when you were accused, you know whether 
justly or — ” 

“You ’re a liar, Captain! ” cried Nabbem, furiously, fearful 
that something not meet for the ears of his companions should 
transpire. “You knows you are! Come down, or let me 
mount; otherwise I won’t be ’sponsible for the consequences! ” 

Clifford cast a look over his shoulder. A gleam of the 
gray daylight already glimmered through a chink in the secret 
door, which Tomlinson had now unbarred and was about to 
open. 

“Listen to me, Mr. Nabbem,” said he, “and perhaps I may 
grant w r hat you require ! What would you do with me if you 
had me?” 

“You speaks like a sensible man now,” answered Nabbem; 
“and that’s after my own heart. Why, you sees, Captain, 
your time is come, and you can’t shilly-shally any longer. 
You have had your full swing; your years are up, and you 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


341 


must die like a man ! But I gives you my honour as a gem- 
man, that if you surrenders, I ’ll take you to the justice folks 
as tenderly as if you were made of cotton. ” 

“ Give way one moment,’’ said Clifford, “that I may plant 
the steps firmer for you.” 

Nabbem retreated to the ground; and Clifford, who had, 
good-naturedly enough, been unwilling unnecessarily to dam- 
age so valuable a functionary, lost not the opportunity now 
afforded him. Down thundered the steps, clattering heavily 
among the other officers, and falling like an avalanche on the 
shoulder of one of the arresters of Long Ned. 

Meanwhile Clifford sprang after Tomlinson through the 
aperture, and found himself — in the presence of four officers, 
conducted by the shrewd MacGrawler. A blow from a blud- 
geon on the right cheek and temple of Augustus felled that 
hero. But Clifford bounded over his comrade’s body, dodged 
from the stroke aimed at himself, caught the blow aimed by 
another assailant in his open hand, wrested the bludgeon from 
the officer, struck him to the ground with his own weapon, 
and darting onward through the labyrinth of the wood, com- 
menced his escape with a step too fleet to allow the hope of 
a successful pursuit. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

“ In short, Isabella, I offer you myself ! ” 

“ Heavens ! ” cried Isabella, ‘‘what do I hear? You, my lord? ” 

Castle of Otranto. 

A novel is like a weatherglass, — where the man appears 
out at one time, the woman at another. Variable as the 
atmosphere, the changes of our story now re-present Lucy to 
the reader. 

That charming young person — who, it may be remarked, is 
(her father excepted) the only unsophisticated and unsullied 
character in the pages of a story in some measure designed to 
show, in the depravities of character, the depravities of that 


342 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


social state wherein characters are formed — was sitting alone 
in her apartment at the period in which we return to her. As 
time, and that innate and insensible fund of healing , which 
Nature has placed in the bosoms of the young in order that 
her great law, the passing away of the old, may not leave too 
lasting and keen a wound, had softened her first anguish at 
her father’s death, the remembrance of Clifford again resumed 
its ancient sway in her heart. The loneliness of her life, the 
absence of amusement, even the sensitiveness and languor 
which succeed to grief, conspired to invest the image of her 
lover in a tenderer and more impressive guise. She recalled 
his words, his actions, his letters, and employed herself whole 
hours, whole days and nights, in endeavouring to decipher 
their mystery. Who that has been loved will not acknowl- 
edge the singular and mighty force with which a girl, innocent 
herself, clings to the belief of innocence in her lover? In 
breasts young and unacquainted with the world, there is so 
pure a credulity in the existence of unmixed good, so firm a 
reluctance to think that where we love there can be that which 
we would not esteem, or where we admire there can be that which 
we ought to blame, that one may almost deem it an argument 
in favour of our natural power to attain a greater eminence 
in virtue than the habits and arts of the existing world will 
allow us to reach. Perhaps it is not paradoxical to say that 
we could scarcely believe perfection in others, were not the 
germ of perfectibility in our own minds ! When a man has 
lived some years among the actual contests of faction without 
imbibing the prejudice as well as the experience, how won- 
deringly he smiles at his worship of former idols, how differ- 
ent a colour does history wear to him, how cautious is he now 
to praise, how slow to admire, how prone to cavil ! Human 
nature has become the human nature of art ; apd he estimates 
it not from what it may be, but from what, in the corruptions 
of a semi-civilization, it is ! But in the same manner as the 
young student clings to the belief that the sage or the min- 
strel, who has enlightened his reason or chained his imagina- 
tion, is in character as in genius elevated above the ordinary 
herd, free from the passions, the frivolities, the little mean' 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


343 


nesses, and the darkening vices which ordinary flesh is heir 
to, does a woman who loves for the first time cling to the 
imagined excellence of him she loves. When Evelina is so 
shocked at the idea of an occasional fit of intoxication in her 
“ noble, her unrivalled ” lover, who does not acknowledge how 
natural were her feelings? Had Evelina been married six 
years, and the same lover, then her husband , been really guilty 
of what she suspected, who does not feel that it would have 
been very unnatural to have been shocked in the least at the 
occurrence? She would not have loved him less, nor admired 
him less, nor would he have been less “the noble and the 
unrivalled,” — he would have taken his glass too much, have 
joked the next morning on the event, and the gentle Evelina 
would have made him a cup of tea; but that which would have 
been a matter of pleasantry in the husband would have been 
matter of damnation in a lover. But to return to Lucy. 

If it be so hard, so repellent, to believe a lover guilty even 
of a trivial error, we may readily suppose that Lucy never for 
a moment admitted the supposition that Clifford had been 
really guilty of gross error or wilful crime. True that expres- 
sions in his letter were more than suspicious; but there is 
always a charm in the candour of self-condemnation. As it 
is difficult to believe the excellence of those who praise them- 
selves, so it is difficult to fancy those criminal who condemn. 
What, too, is the process of a woman’s reasoning? Alas! she 
is too credulous a physiognomist. The turn of a throat, with 
her, is the unerring token of nobleness of mind; and no one 
can be guilty of a sin who is blessed with a beautiful forehead! 
How fondly, how fanatically Lucy loved! She had gathered 
together a precious and secret hoard, a glove, a pen, a book, 
a withered rose-leaf, — treasures rendered inestimable because 
he had touched them ; but more than all, had she the series of 
his letters, — from the first formal note written to her father, 
meant for her, in which he answered an invitation, and re- 
quested Miss Brandon’s acceptance of the music she had 
wished to have, to the last wild and, to her, inexplicable 
letter in which he had resigned her forever. On these relics 
her eyes fed for hours ; and as she pored over them, and over 


344 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


thoughts too deep not only for tears but for all utterance or 
conveyance, you might have almost literally watched the fad- 
ing of her rich cheek and the pining away of her rounded and 
elastic form. 

It was just in such a mood that she was buried when her 
uncle knocked at her door for admittance. She hurried away 
her treasures, and hastened to admit and greet him. 

“I have come,” said he, smiling, “to beg the pleasure of 
your company for an old friend who dines with us to-day. 
But, stay, Lucy, your hair is ill-arranged. Do not let me 
disturb so important an occupation as your toilette; dress 
yourself, my love, and join us.” 

Lucy turned, with a suppressed sigh, to the glass. The 
uncle lingered for a few moments, surveying her with min- 
gled pride and doubt; he then slowly left the chamber. 

Lucy soon afterwards descended to the drawing-room, and 
beheld with a little surprise (for she had not had sufficient 
curiosity to inquire the name of the guest), the slender form 
and comely features of Lord Mauleverer. The earl approached 
with the same grace which had in his earlier youth rendered 
him almost irresistible, but which now, from the contrast of 
years with manner, contained a slight mixture of the comic. 
He paid his compliments, and in paying them declared that 
he must leave it to his friend, Sir William, to explain all the 
danger he had dared, for the sake of satisfying himself that 
Miss Brandon was no less lovely than when he had last beheld 
her. 

“Yes, indeed,” said Brandon, with a scarcely perceptible 
sneer, “Lord Mauleverer has literally endured the moving 
accidents of flood and field, — for he was nearly exterminated 
by a highwayman, and all but drowned in a ditch ! ” 

“Commend me to a friend for setting one off to the best 
advantage,” said Mauleverer, gayly. “Instead of attracting 
your sympathy, you see, Brandon would expose me to your 
ridicule; judge for yourself whether I deserve it! ” and Maul- 
everer proceeded to give, with all the animation which be- 
longed to his character, the particulars of that adventure with 
which the reader is so well acquainted. He did not, we may 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 345 

be sure, feel any scruple in representing himself and his prow- 
ess in the most favourable colours. 

The story was scarcely ended when dinner was announced. 
During that meal Mauleverer exerted himself to be amiable 
with infinite address. Suiting his conversation, more than he 
had hitherto deigned to do, to the temper of Lucy, and more 
anxious to soften than to dazzle, he certainly never before 
appeared to her so attractive. We are bound to add that the 
point of attraction did not reach beyond the confession that 
he was a very agreeable old man. 

Perhaps, if there had not been a certain half -melancholy vein 
in his conversation, possibly less uncongenial to his lordship 
from the remembrance of his lost diamonds, and the impres- 
sion that Sir William Brandon’s cook was considerably worse 
than his own, he might not have been so successful in pleas- 
ing Lucy. As for himself, all the previous impressions she 
had made on him returned in colours yet more vivid; even 
the delicate and subdued cast of beauty which had succeeded 
to her earlier brilliancy, was far more charming to his fastid- 
ious and courtly taste than her former glow of spirits and 
health. He felt himself very much in love during dinner; 
and after it was over, and Lucy had retired, he told Brandon, 
with a passionate air, that he adored his niece to distraction! 

The wily judge affected to receive the intimation with 
indifference ; but knowing that too long an absence is injuri- 
ous to a grande passion, he did not keep Mauleverer very late 
over his wine. 

The earl returned rapturously to the drawing-room, and 
besought Lucy, in a voice in which affectation seemed swoon- 
ing with delight, to indulge him/ with a song. More and 
more enchanted by her assent, he drew the music-stool to the 
harpsichord, placed a chair beside her, and presently appeared 
lost in transport. Meanwhile Brandon, with his back to the 
pair, covered his face with his handkerchief, and to all ap- 
pearance yielded to the voluptuousness of an after-dinner 
repose. 

Lucy’s song-book opened accidentally at a song which had 
been praised by Clifford; and as she sang, her voice took a 


346 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


richer and more tender tone than in Mauleverer’s presence it 
had ever before assumed. 

THE COMPLAINT OF THE VIOLETS WHICH LOSE THEIR 
SCENT IN MAY. 


i. 

In the shadow that falls from the silent hill 
We slept, in our green retreats : 

And the April showers were wont to fill 
Our hearts with sweets. 


ii. 

And though we lay in a lowly bower, 

Yet all things loved us well, 

And the waking bee left her fairest flower, 
With us to dwell. 


hi. 

But the warm May came in his pride to woo 
The wealth of our honeyed store ; 

And our hearts just felt his breath, and knew 
Their sweets no more ! 

. IV - 

And the summer reigns on the quiet spot 
Where we dwell, and its suns and showers 
Bring balm to our sisters’ hearts, but not — 
Ah ! not to ours. 


We live, we bloom, but forever o’er 
Is the charm of the earth and sky ; 

To our life, ye heavens, that balm restore, 

Or — bid us die ! 

As with eyes suffused with many recollections, and a voice 
which melted away in an indescribable and thrilling pathos, 
Lucy ceased her song, Mauleverer, charmed out of himself, 
gently took her hand, and holding the soft treasure in his 
own, scarcely less soft, he murmured, — 

‘‘Angel, sing on! Life would be like your own music, if I 
could breathe it away at your feet! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


347 


There had been a time when Lucy would have laughed 
outright at this declaration; and even as it was, a suppressed 
and half-arch smile played in the dimples of her beautiful 
mouth, and bewitchingly contrasted the swimming softness of 
her eyes. 

Drawing rather an erroneous omen from the smile, Maul- 
everer rapturously continued, still detaining the hand which 
Lucy endeavoured to extricate, — 

“Yes, enchanting Miss Brandon! I, who have for so 
many years boasted of my invulnerable heart, am subdued 
at last. I have long, very long, struggled against my attach- 
ment to you. Alas! it is in vain; and you behold me now 
utterly at your mercy. Make me the most miserable of men 
or the most enviable. Enchantress, speak! ” 

“Really, my lord,” said Lucy, hesitating, yet rising, and 
freeing herself from his hand, “ I feel it difficult to suppose 
you serious ; and perhaps this is merely a gallantry to me by 
way of practice on others.” 

“ Sweet Lucy, if I may so call you, ” answered Mauleverer, 
with an ardent gaze, “do not, I implore you, even for a mo- 
ment, affect to mistake me! Do not for a moment jest at 
what, to me, is the bane or bliss of life ! Dare I hope that 
my hand and heart, which I now offer you, are not deserving 
of your derision?” 

Lucy gazed on her adorer with a look of serious inquiry; 
Brandon still appeared to sleep. 

“ If you are in earnest, my lord, ” said Lucy, after a pause, 
“I am truly and deeply sorry. For the friend of my uncle I 
shall always have esteem ; believe that I am truly sensible of 
the honour you render me, when I add my regret that I can 
have no other sentiment than esteem.” 

A blank and puzzled bewilderment for a moment clouded 
the expressive features of Mauleverer; it passed away. 

“How sweet is your rebuke! ” said he. “Yes; I do not yet 
deserve any other sentiment than esteem. You are not to be 
won precipitately; a long trial, a long course of attentions, a 
long knowledge of my devoted and ardent love, alone will 
entitle me to hope for a warmer feeling in your breast. Fix 


348 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


then your own time of courtship, angelic Lucy ! — a week, nay, 
a month! Till then, I will not even press you to appoint that 
day which to me will be the whitest of m} r life ! ” 

“ My lord ! ” said Lucy, smiling now no longer half archly, 
“you must pardon me for believing your proposal can be 
nothing but a jest; but here, I beseech you, let it rest forever. 
Do not mention this subject to me again.” 

“By heavens!” cried Mauleverer, “this is too cruel. 
Brandon, intercede with me for your niece.” 

Sir William started, naturally enough, from his slumber, 
and Mauleverer continued, — 

“Yes, intercede for me; you, my oldest friend, be my 
greatest benefactor ! I sue to your niece ; she affects to 
disbelieve. Will you convince her of my truth, my devo- 
tion, my worship?” 

“ Disbelieve you ! ” said the bland judge, with the same 
secret sneer that usually lurked in the corners of his mouth. 
“I do not wonder that she is slow to credit the honour you 
have done her, and for which the noblest damsels in England 
have sighed in vain. Lucy, will you be cruel to Lord Maul- 
everer? Believe me, he has oftep confided to me his love for 
you; and if the experience of some years avails, there is not a 
question of his honour and his truth. I leave his fate in your 
hands.” 

Brandon turned to the door. 

“Stay, dear sir,” said Lucy, “and instead of interceding for 
Lord Mauleverer, intercede for me.” Her look now settled 
into a calm and decided seriousness of expression. “I feel 
highly flattered by his lordship’s proposal, which, as you say, 
I might well doubt to be gravely meant. I wish him all 
happiness with a lady of higher deserts; but I speak from an 
unalterable determination, when I say that I can never accept 
the dignity with which he would invest me.” 

So saying, Lucy walked quickly to the door and vanished, 
leaving the two friends to comment as they would upon her 
conduct. 

“You have spoiled all with your precipitation,” said the 
uncle. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


349 


“Precipitation! d — n it, what would you have? I have 
been fifty years making up my mind to marry ; and now when 
I have not a day to lose, you talk of precipitation ! ” answered 
the lover, throwing himself into an easy-chair. 

“ But you have not been fifty years making up your mind to 
marry my niece,” said Brandon, dryly. 

“ To be refused, positively refused, by a country girl ! ” 
continued Mauleverer, soliloquizing aloud; “and that too at 
my age and with all my experience ! — a country girl without 
rank, ton , accomplishments ! By heavens ! I don’t care if all 
the world heard it, — for not a soul in the world will ever 
believe it.” 

Brandon sat speechless, eying the mortified face of the 
courtier with a malicious complacency, and there was a pause 
of several minutes. Sir William then, mastering the strange 
feeling which made him always rejoice in whatever threw rid- 
icule on his friend , approached, laid his hand kindly on 
Mauleverer’s shoulder, and talked to him of comfort and of 
encouragement. The reader will believe that Mauleverer 
was not a man whom it was impossible to encourage. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

Before he came, everything loved me, and I had more things to love than 
I could reckon by the hairs of my head. Now I feel I can love but one, and 
that one has deserted me. . . . Well, be it so, — let her perish, let her be 
anything but mine! — Mel moth. 


Early the next morning Sir William Brandon was closeted 
for a long time with his niece, previous to his departure to the 
duties of his office. Anxious and alarmed for the success of 
one of the darling projects of his ambition, he spared no art 
in his conversation with Lucy, that his great ingenuity of 
eloquence and wonderful insight into human nature could 
suggest, in order to gain at least a foundation for the raising 
of his scheme. Among other resources of his worldly tact, he 


350 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


hinted at Lucy’s love for Clifford; and (though darkly and 
subtly, as befitting the purity of the one he addressed) this 
abandoned and wily person did not scruple to hint also at the 
possibility of indulging that love after marriage; though he 
denounced, as the last of indecorums, the crime of encourag- 
ing it before . This hint, however, fell harmless upon the 
innocent ear of Lucy. She did not in the remotest degree 
comprehend its meaning; she only, with a glowing cheek and a 
pouting lip, resented the allusion to a love which she thought 
it insolent in any one even to suspect. 

When Brandon left the apartment, his brow was clouded, 
and his eye absent and thoughtful : it was evident that there 
had been little in the conference with his niece to please or 
content him. Miss Brandon herself was greatly agitated; for 
there was in her uncle’s nature that silent and impressive 
secret of influencing or commanding others which almost so 
invariably and yet so quietly attains the wishes of its owner; 
and Lucy, who loved and admired him sincerely, — not the 
less, perhaps, for a certain modicum of fear, — was greatly 
grieved at perceiving how rooted in him was the desire of that 
marriage which she felt was a moral impossibility. But if 
Brandon possessed the secret of sway, Lucy was scarcely less 
singularly endowed with the secret of resistance. It may be 
remembered, in describing her character, that we spoke of her 
as one who seemed, to the superficial, as of too yielding and 
soft a temper. But circumstances gave the lie to manner, 
and proved that she eminently possessed a quiet firmness and 
latent resolution, which gave to her mind a nobleness and 
trustworthy power that never would have been suspected by 
those who met her among the ordinary paths of life. 

Brandon had not been long gone, when Lucy’s maid came 
to inform her that a gentleman, who expressed himself very 
desirous of seeing her, waited below. The blood rushed from 
Lucy’s cheek at this announcement, simple as it seemed. 
“What gentleman could be desirous of seeing her? Was it 
— was it Clifford?” She remained for some moments motion- 
less, and literally unable to move; at length she summoned 
courage, and smiling with self-contempt at a notion which 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


351 


appeared to her after thoughts utterly absurd, she descended 
to the drawing-room. The first glance she directed towards 
the stranger, who stood by the fireplace with folded arms, was 
sufficient, — it was impossible to mistake, though the face was 
averted, the unequalled form of her lover. She advanced 
eagerly with a faint cry, checked herself, and sank upon the 
sofa. 

Clifford turned towards her, and fixed his eyes upon her 
countenance with an intense and melancholy gaze, but he did 
not utter a syllable; and Lucy, after pausing in expectation 
of his voice, looked up, and caught, in alarm, the strange and 
peculiar aspect of his features. He approached her slowly, 
and still silent; but his gaze seemed to grow more earnest and 
mournful as he advanced. 

“Yes,” said he at last, in a broken and indistinct voice, “I 
see you once more, after all my promises to quit you forever, 
— after my solemn farewell, after all that I have cost you ; 
for, Lucy, you love me, you love me, and I shudder while I 
feel it; after all I myself have borne and resisted, I once more 
come wilfully into your presence ! How have I burned and 
sickened for this moment ! How have I said, ‘ Let me behold 
her once more, only once more, and Fate may then do her 
worst ! ’ Lucy ! dear, dear Lucy ! forgive me for my weak- 
ness. It is now in bitter and stern reality the very last I can 
be guilty of ! ” 

As he spoke, Clifford sank beside her. He took both her 
hands in his, and holding them, though without pressure, 
again looked passionately upon her innocent yet eloquent 
face. It seemed as if he were moved beyond all the ordinary 
feelings of reunion and of love. He did not attempt to kiss 
the hands he held; and though the touch thrilled through 
every vein and fibre of his frame, his clasp was as light as 
that in which the first timidity of a boy’s love ventures to 
stamp itself ! 

“You are pale, Lucy,” said he, mournfully, “and your 
cheek is much thinner than it was when I first saw you. 
When I first saw you ! Ah ! would for your sake that that had 
never been! Your spirits were light then, Lucy; your laugh 


352 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


came from the heart, your step spurned the earth. Joy broke 
from your eyes, everything that breathed around you seemed 
full of happiness and mirth; and now, look upon me, Lucy! 
lift those soft eyes, and teach them to flash upon me indigna- 
tion and contempt ! Oh, not thus, not thus ! I could leave you 
happy, —yes, literally blessed, —if I could fancy you less 
forgiving, less gentle, less angelic ! ” 

“What have I to forgive?” said Lucy, tenderly. 

“ What ! everything for which one human being can pardon 
another. Have not deceit and injury been my crimes against 
you? Your peace of mind, your serenity of heart, your buoy- 
ancy of temper, — have I marred these or not?” 

“Oh, Clifford!” said Lucy, rising from herself and from 
all selfish thoughts, “why, why will you not trust me? You 
do not know me, indeed you do not, — you are ignorant even 
of the very nature of a woman, if you think me unworthy of 
your confidence! Do you believe I could betray it; or do you 
think that if you had done that for which all the world for- 
sook you, I could forsake?” 

Lucy’s voice faltered at the last words; but it sank, as a 
stone sinks into deep waters, to the very core of Clifford’s 
heart. Transported from all resolution and all forbearance, 
he wound his arms around her in one long and impassioned 
caress; and Lucy, as her breath mingled with his, and her 
cheek drooped upon Jhis bosom, did indeed feel as if the past 
could contain no secret powerful enough even to weaken the 
affection with which her heart clung to his. She was the first 
to extricate herself from their embrace. She drew back her 
face from his, and smiling on him through her tears, with a 
brightness that the smiles of her earliest youth had never 
surpassed, she said, — 

“Listen to me. Tell me your history or not, as you will. 
But believe me, a woman’s wit is often no despicable coun- 
sellor. They who accuse themselves the most bitterly are not 
often those whom it is most difficult to forgive; and you must 
pardon me if I doubt the extent of the blame you would so 
lavishly impute to yourself. I am now alone in the world ” 
(here the smile withered from Lucy’s lips). “My poor father 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


853 


is dead. I can injure no one by my conduct; there is no one 
on earth to whom I am bound by duty. I am independent, 
I am rich. You profess to love me. I am foolish and vain, 
and I believe you. Perhaps, also, I have the fond hope which 
so often makes dupes of women, — the hope that if you have 
erred, I may reclaim you; if you have been unfortunate, I 
may console you! I know, Mr. Clifford, that I am saying 
that for which many would despise me, and for which, per- 
haps, I ought to despise myself; but there are times when we 
speak only as if some power at our hearts constrained us, 
despite ourselves, — and it is thus that I have now spoken to 
you.” 

It was with an air very unwonted to herself that Lucy had 
concluded her address, for her usual characteristic was rather 
softness than dignity; but, as if to correct the meaning of her 
words, which might otherwise appear unmaidenly, there was 
a chaste, a proud, yet not the less a tender and sweet propriety 
and dignified frankness in her look and manner; so that it 
would have been utterly impossible for one who heard her not 
to have done justice to the nobleness of her motives, or not to 
have felt both touched and penetrated, as much by respect as 
by any warmer or more familiar feeling. 

Clifford, who had risen while she was speaking, listened 
with a countenance that varied at every word she uttered, — 
now all hope, now all despondency. As she ceased, the ex- 
pression hardened into a settled and compulsive resolution. 

“It is well! ” said he, mutteringly. “I am worthy of this, 
— very, very worthy ! Generous, noble girl ! had I been an 
emperor, I would have bowed down to you in worship; but 
to debase, to degrade you, — no! no!” 

“Is there debasement in love?” murmured Lucy. 

Clifford gazed upon her with a sort of enthusiastic and self- 
gratulatory pride; perhaps he felt to be thus loved and by 
such a creature was matter of pride, even in the lowest cir- 
cumstances to which he could ever be exposed. He drew his 
breath hard, set his teeth, and answered, — 

“You could love, then, an outcast, without birth, fortune, 
or character? No ! you believe this now, but you could not. 

23 


354 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Could you desert your country, your friends, and your home, 
— all that you are born and fitted for? Could you attend one 
over whom the sword hangs, through a life subjected every 
hour to discovery and disgrace? Could you be subjected your- 
self to the moodiness of an evil memory and the gloomy silence 
of remorse? Could you be the victim of one who has no merit 
but his love for you, and who, if that love destroy you, be- 
comes utterly redeemed? Yes, Lucy, I was wrong — I will 
do you justice; all this, nay, more, you could bear, and your 
generous nature would disdain the sacrifice. But am I to be 
all selfish, and you all devoted? Are you to yield everything 
to me, and I to accept everything and yield none? Alas ! I 
have but one good, one blessing to yield, and that is yourself. 
Lucy, I deserve you; I outdo you in generosity. All that you 
would desert for me is nothing — 0 God ! — nothing to the 
sacrifice I make to you ! And now, Lucy, I have seen you, 
and I must once more bid you farewell; I am on the eve 
of quitting this country forever. I shall enlist in a foreign 
service. Perhaps ” (and Clifford’s dark eyes flashed with 
fire) “you will yet hear of me, and not blush when you 
hear ! But ” (and his voice filtered, for Lucy, hiding her 
face with both hands, gave way to her tears and agitation), — 
“but, in one respect, you have conquered. I had believed 
that you could never be mine, — that my past life had forever 
deprived me of that hope! I now begin, with a rapture that 
can bear me through all ordeals, to form a more daring vision. 
A soil may be effaced, — an evil name may be redeemed, — 
the past is not set and sealed, without the power of revoking 
what has been written. If I can win the right of meriting 
your mercy, I will throw myself on it without reserve; till 
then, or till death, you will see me no more ! ” 

He dropped on his knee, left his kiss and his tears upon 
Lucy’s cold hand; the next moment she heard his step on the 
stairs, the door closed heavily and jarringly upon him, and 
Lucy felt one bitter pang, and, for some time at least, she 
felt no more ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


355 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

Many things fall between the cup and the lip ! 

Your man does please me 

With his conceit. 

Comes Chanon Hugh accoutred as you see 

Disguised ! 

And thus am I to gull the constable ? 

Now have among you for a man at arms. 

High-constable was more, though 

He laid Dick Tator by the heels. 

Ben Jonson 1 Tale of a Tub. 

Meanwhile Clifford strode rapidly through the streets 
which surrounded the judge’s house, and turning to an 
obscurer quartier of the town, entered a gloomy lane or 
alley. Here he was abruptly accosted by a man wrapped in a 
shaggy great-coat, of somewhat a suspicious appearance. 

“ Aha, Captain ! ” said he, “ you are beyond your time, but 
all ’s well ! ” 

Attempting, with indifferent success, the easy self-posses- 
sion which generally marked his address to his companions, 
Clifford, repeating the stranger’s words, replied, — 

“All ’s well! What! are the prisoners released?” 

“No, faith!” answered the man, with a rough laugh, “not 
yet; but all in good time. It is a little too much to expect 
the justices to do our work, though, by the Lord Harry, we 
often do theirs! ” 

“What then?” asked Clifford, impatiently. 

“Why, the poor fellows had been carried to the town of 

, and brought before the queer cuffin 1 ere I arrived, 

though I set off the moment you told me, and did the journey 
in four hours. The examination lasted all yesterday, and 
1 Magistrate. 


356 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


they were remanded till to-day, — let’s see, it is not yet 
noon; we may be there before it’s over.” 

“And this is what you call well! ” said Clifford, angrily. 

“No, Captain, don’t be glimflashy! You have not heard 
all yet! It seems that the only thing buffed hard against 
them was by a stout grazier, who was cried £ Stand ! ’ to, some 
fifty miles off the town ; so the queer cuffin thinks of sending 
the poor fellows to the jail of the county where they did the 
business! ” 

“Ah! that may leave some hopes for them! We must look 
sharp to their journey; if they once get to prison, their only 
chances are the file and the bribe. Unhappily, neither of 
them is so lucky as myself at that trade ! ” 

“No, indeed, there is not a stone-wall in England that the 
great Captain Lovett could not creep through, I’ll swear!” 
said the admiring satellite. 

“ Saddle the horses and load the pistols ! I will join you in 
ten minutes. Have my farmer’s dress ready, the false hair, 
etc. Choose your own trim. Make haste; the Three Feathers 
is the house of meeting.” 

“And in ten minutes only, Captain?” 

“ Punctually ! ” 

The stranger turned a corner and was out of sight. Clifford, 
muttering, “Yes, I was the cause of their apprehension; it 
was I who was sought; it is but fair that I should strike a 
blow for their escape before I attempt my own,” continued his 
course till he came to the door of a public-house. The sign 
of a seaman swung aloft, portraying the jolly tar with a fine 
pewter pot in his hand, considerably huger than his own cir- 
cumference. An immense pug sat at the door, lolling its 
tongue out, as if, having stuffed itself to the tongue, it was 
forced to turn that useful member out of its proper place. 
The shutters were half closed, but the sounds of coarse merri- 
ment issued jovially forth. 

Clifford disconcerted the pug; and crossing the threshold, 
cried in a loud tone, “ Janseen! ” 

“ Here ! ” answered a gruff voice ; and Clifford, passing on, 
came to a small parlour adjoining the tap. There, seated by 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


357 


a round oak table, he found mine host, — a red, fierce, 
weather-beaten, but bloated-looking personage, like Dick 
Hatteraick in a dropsy. 

“ How now, Captain ! ” cried he, in a gutteral accent, and 
interlarding his discourse with certain Dutch graces, which 
with our reader’s leave we will omit, as being unable to spell 
them ; “ how now ! — not gone yet ! ” 

“No! I start for the coast to-morrow; business keeps me 
to-day. I came to ask if Mellon may be fully depended on?” 

“Ay, honest to the back-bone.” 

“And you are sure that in spite of my late delays he will 
not have left the village?” 

“Sure! What else can I be? Don’t I know Jack Mellon 
these twenty years ! He would lie like a log in a calm for ten 
months together, without moving a hair’s-breadth, if he was 
under orders.” 

“And his vessel is swift and well manned, in case of an 
officer’s chase?” 

“The ‘Black Molly’ swift?. Ask your grandmother. The 
‘ Black Molly ’ would outstrip a shark.” 

“Then good-by, Janseen; there is something to keep your 
pipe alight. We shall not meet within the three seas again, I 
think. England is as much too hot for me as Holland for 
you! ” 

“You are a capital fellow!” cried mine host, shaking 
Clifford by the hand; “and when the lads come to know 
their loss, they will know they have lost the bravest and 
truest gill that ever took to the toby; so good-by, and be 
d — d to you ! ” 

With this valedictory benediction mine host released 
Clifford; and the robber hastened to his appointment at 
the Three Feathers. 

He found all prepared. He hastily put on his disguise; 
and his follower led out his horse, — a noble animal of the 
grand Irish breed, of remarkable strength and bone, and save 
only that it was somewhat sharp in the quarters (a fault which 
they who look for speed as well as grace will easily forgive), 
of most unequalled beauty in its symmetry and proportions. 


358 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Well did the courser know, and proudly did it render obeis- 
ance to, its master ; snorting impatiently and rearing from the 
hand of the attendant robber, the sagacious animal freed itself 
of the rein, and as it tossed its long mane in the breeze of the 
fresh air, came trotting to the place where Clifford stood. 

“So ho, Robin! so ho! What, thou chafest that I have left 
thy fellow behind at the Red Cave ! Him we may never see 
more. But while I have life, I will not leave thee , Robin ! ” 

With these words the robber fondly stroked the shining 
neck of his favourite steed; and as the animal returned the 
caress by rubbing its head against the hands and the athletic 
breast of its master, Clifford felt at his heart somewhat of 
that old racy stir of the blood which had been once to him 
the chief charm of his criminal profession, and which in the 
late change of his feelings he had almost forgotten. 

“Well, Robin, well,” he renewed, as he kissed the face of 
his steed, — “ well, we will have some days like our old ones 
yet; thou shalt say, Ha! ha! to the trumpet, and bear thy 
master along on more glorious enterprises than he has yet 
thanked thee for sharing. Thou v^ilt now be my only fa- 
miliar, my only friend, Robin; we two shall be strangers 
in a foreign land. But thou wilt make thyself welcome 
easier than thy lord, Robin; and thou wilt forget the old 
days and thine old comrades and thine old loves, when — 
Ha!” and Clifford turned abruptly to his attendant, who 
addressed him; “It is late, you say. True! Look you, it 
will be unwise for us both to quit London together. You 
know the sixth milestone; join me there, and we can proceed 
in company ! ” 

Hot unwilling to linger for a parting cup, the comrade 
assented to the prudence of the plan proposed; and after 
one or two additional words of caution and advice, Clifford 
mounted and rode from the yard of the inn. As he passed 
through the tall wooden gates into the street, the imperfect 
gleam of the wintry sun falling over himself and his steed, it 
was scarcely possible, even in spite of his disguise and rude 
garb, to conceive a more gallant and striking specimen of the 
lawless and daring tribe to which he belonged; the height, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


859 


strength, beauty, and exquisite grooming visible in the steed; 
the sparkling eye, the bold profile, the sinewy chest, the grace- 
ful limbs, and the careless and practised horsemanship of the 
rider. 

Looking after his chief with a long and an admiring gaze, 
the robber said to the hostler of the inn, an aged and withered 
man, who had seen nine generations of highwaymen rise and 
vanish, — 

“There, Joe, when did you ever look on a hero like that? 
The bravest heart, the frankest hand, the best judge of a 
horse, and the handsomest man that ever did honour to 
Hounslow ! ” 

“For all that,” returned the hostler, shaking his palsied 
head, and turning back to the tap-room, — “for all that, 
master, his time be up. Mark my whids, Captain Lovett 
will not be over the year, — no, nor mayhap the month ! ” 

“Why, you old rascal, what makes you so wise? You will 
not peach, I suppose ! ” 

“ I peach ! Devil a bit ! But there never was the gemman 
of the road, great or small, knowing or stupid, as outlived his 
seventh year. And this will be the captain’s seventh, come 
the 21st of next month; but he be a fine chap, and I ’ll go to 
his hanging! ” 

“Pish! ” said the robber, peevishly, — he himself was verg- 
ing towards the end of his sixth year, — “pish! ” 

“Mind, I tells it you, master; and somehow or other I 
thinks — and I has experience in these things — by the fey 1 
of his eye and the drop of his lip, that the captain’s time will 
be up to-day ! ” 

Here the robber lost all patience, and pushing the hoary 
boder of evil against the wall, he turned on his heel, and 
sought some more agreeable companion to share his stirrup- 
cup. 

It was in the morning of the day following that in which 
the above conversations occurred, that the sagacious Augustus 
Tomlinson and the valorous Edward Pepper, handcuffed and 

1 A word difficult to translate ; but the closest interpretation of which is, 
perhaps, “ the ill omen.” 


860 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


fettered, were jogging along the road in a postchaise, with 
Mr. Nabbem squeezed in by the side of the former, and two 
other gentlemen in Mr. Nabbem’s confidence mounted on the 
box of the chaise, and interfering sadly, as Long Ned growl- 
ingly remarked, with “the beauty of the prospect.” 

“Ah, well!” quoth Nabbem, unavoidably thrusting his 
elbow into Tomlinson’s side, while he drew out his snuff- 
box, and helped himself largely to the intoxicating dust; 
“you had best prepare yourself, Mr. Pepper, for a change 
of prospects. I believes as how there is little to please you 
in quod [prison].” 

“Nothing makes men so facetious as misfortune to others! ” 
said Augustus, moralizing, and turning himself, as well as he 
was able, in order to deliver his body from the pointed elbow 
of Mr. Nabbem. “When a man is down in the world, all the 
bystanders, very dull fellows before, suddenly become wits ! ” 

“You reflects on I,” said Mr. Nabbem. “Well, it does not 
sinnify a pin ; for directly we does our duty, you chaps become 
howdaciously ungrateful ! ” 

“Ungrateful!” said Pepper; “what a plague have we got 
to be grateful for? I suppose you think we ought to tell you 
you are the best friend we have, because you have scrouged us, 
neck and crop, into this horrible hole, like turkeys fatted for 
Christmas. ’Sdeath! one’s hair is flatted down like a pan- 
cake; and as for one’s legs, you had better cut them off at 
once than tuck them up in a place a foot square, — to say 
nothing of these blackguardly irons! ” 

“The only irons pardonable in your eyes, Ned,” said Tom- 
linson, “are the curling-irons, eh?” 

“Now, if this is not too much!” cried Nabbem, crossly; 
“you objects to go in a cart like the rest of your profession; 
and when I puts myself out of the way to obleedge you with 
a shay, you slangs I for it! ” 

“Peace, good Nabbem!” said Augustus, with a sage’s 
dignity; “you must allow a little bad humour in men so 
unhappily situated as we are.” 

The soft answer turneth away wrath. Tomlinson’s answer 
softened Nabbem; and by way of conciliation, he held his 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


361 


snuff-box to the nose of his unfortunate prisoner. Shutting 
his eyes, Tomlinson long and earnestly sniffed up the luxury, 
and as soon as, with his own kerchief of spotted yellow, the 
officer had wiped from the proboscis some lingering grains, 
Tomlinson thus spoke : — 

“You see us now, Mr. Nabbem, in a state of broken-down 
opposition; but our spirits are not broken too. In our time 
we have had something to do with the administration; and 
our comfort at present is the comfort of fallen ministers! ” 

“ Oho ! you were in the Methodist line before you took to 
the road?” said Nabbem. 

“Not so!” answered Augustus, gravely. “We were the 
Methodists of politics, not of the church; namely, we lived 
upon our flock without a legal authority to do so, and that 
which the law withheld from us our wits gave. But tell me, 
Mr. Nabbem, are you addicted to politics?” 

“ Why, they says I be,” said Mr. Nabbem, with a grin; “and 
for my part, I thinks all who sarves the king should stand up 
for him, and take care of their litble families! ” 

“ You speak what others think ! ” answered Tomlinson, 
smiling also. “And I will now, since you like politics, point 
out to you what I dare say you have not observed before.” 

“What be that?” said Nabbem. 

“A wonderful likeness between the life of the gentlemen 
adorning his Majesty’s senate and the life of the gentlemen 
whom you are conducting to his Majesty’s jail.” 

THE LIBELLOUS PARALLEL OF AUGUSTUS TOMLINSON. 

“We enter our career, Mr. Nabbem, as your embryo minis- 
ters enter parliament, — by bribery and corruption. There is 
this difference, indeed, between the two cases : we are enticed 
to enter by the bribery and corruptions of others ; they enter 
spontaneously by dint of their own. At first, deluded ^by 
romantic visions, we like the glory of our career better than 
the profit, and in our youthful generosity we profess to attack 
the rich solely from consideration for the poor! By and by, 
as we grow more hardened, we laugh at these boyish dreams, 
— peasant or prince fares equally at our impartial hands; we 


362 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


grasp at the bucket, but we scorn not the thimbleful ; we use 
the word ‘ glory ’ only as a trap for proselytes and appren- 
tices ; our fingers, like an office-door, are open for all that can 
possibly come into them; we consider the wealthy as our sal- 
ary, the poor as our perquisites. What is this, but a picture 
of your member of parliament ripening into a minister, your 
patriot mellowing into your placeman? And mark me, Mr. 
Nabbem! is not the very language of both as similar as the 
deeds? What is the phrase either of us loves to employ? ‘ To 
deliver.’ What? ‘The Public.’ And do not both invaria- 
bly deliver it of the same thing, — namely, its purse? Do we 
want an excuse for sharing the gold of our neighbours, or 
abusing them if they resist? Is not our mutual, our pithiest 
plea, ‘ Distress ’ ? True, your patriot calls it ‘ distress of the 
country ; ’ but does he ever, a whit more than we do, mean 
any distress but his own? When we are brought low, and 
our coats are shabby, do we not both shake our heads and talk 
of ‘ reform ’ ? And when, oh ! when we are up in the world, 
do we not both kick ‘ reform ’ to the devil? How often your 
parliament man ‘ vacates his seat, ’ only for the purpose of 
resuming it with a weightier purse! How often, dear Ned, 
have our seats been vacated for the same end! Sometimes, 
indeed, he really finishes his career by accepting the Hun- 
dreds, — it is by ‘ accepting the hundreds ’ that ours maj^ be 
finished too! [Ned drew a long sigh.] Note us now, Mr. 
Nabbem, in the zenith of our prosperitjq — we have filled our 
pockets, we have become great in the mouths of our party. 
Our pals admire us, and our blowens adore. What do we in 
this short-lived summer? Save and be thrifty? Ah, no! we 
must give our dinners, and make light of our lush. We sport 
horses on the race-course, and look big at the multitude we 
have bubbled. Is not this your minister come into office? 
Does not this remind you of his equipage, his palace, his 
plate? In both cases lightly won, lavishly wasted; and the 
public, whose cash we have fingered, may at least have the 
pleasure of gaping at the figure we make with it! This, then, 
is our harvest of happiness ; our foes, our friends, are ready 
to eat us with . envy, — yet what is so little enviable as our 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


363 


station? Have we not both our common vexations and our 
mutual disquietudes? Do we not both bribe [Nabbem shook 
his head and buttoned his waistcoat] our enemies, cajole our 
partisans, bully our dependants, and quarrel with our only 
friends, — namely, ourselves? Is not the secret question with 
each, ‘ It is all confoundedly fine; but how long will it last? ’ 
'Now, Mr. Nabbem, note me, — reverse the portrait: we are 
fallen, our career is over, — the road is shut to us, and new 
plunderers are robbing the carriages that once we robbed. Is 
not this the lot of — No, no! I deceive myself! Your min- 
isters, your jobmen, for the most part milk the popular cow 
while there ’s a drop in the udder. Your chancellor declines 
on a pension; your minister attenuates on a grant; the feet 
of your great rogues may be gone from the treasury benches, 
but they have their little fingers in the treasury. Their past 
services are remembered by his Majesty; ours only noted by 
the Recorder. They save themselves, for they hang by one 
another; we go to the devil, for we hang by ourselves. We 
have our little day of the public, and all is over; but it is 
never over with them. We both hunt the same fox; but we 
are your fair riders, they are your knowing ones, — we take 
the leap, and our necks are broken ; they sneak through the 
gates, and keep it up to the last! ” 

As he concluded, Tomlinson’s head dropped on his bosom, 
and it was easy to see that painful comparisons, mingled per- 
haps with secret murmurs at the injustice of fortune, were 
rankling in his breast. Long Ned sat in gloomy silence; and 
even the hard heart of the severe Mr. Nabbem was softened 
by the affecting parallel to which he had listened. They had 
proceeded without speaking for two or three miles, when Long 
Ned, fixing his eyes on Tomlinson, exclaimed, — 

“ Do you know, Tomlinson, I think it was a burning shame 
in Lovett to suffer us to be carried off like muttons, without 
attempting to rescue us by the way! It is all his fault that 
we are here; for it was he whom Nabbem wanted, not us.” 

“Very true,” said the cunning policeman; “and if I were 
you, Mr. Pepper, hang me if I would not behave like a man 


364 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


of spirit, and show as little consarn for him as he shows 
for you! Why, Lord now, I doesn’t want to ’tice you; but 
this I does know, the justices are very anxious to catch 
Lovett ; and one who gives him up, and says a word or two 
about his c’racter, so as to make conviction sartain, may 
himself be sartain of a free pardon for all little sprees and 
so forth ! ” 

“Ah! ” said Long Ned, with a sigh, “that is all very well, 
Mr. Nabbem, but I ’ll go to the crap like a gentleman, and not 
peach of my comrades; and now I think of it, Lovett could 
scarcely have assisted us. One man alone, even Lovett, 
clever as he is, could not have forced us out of the clutches 
of you and your myrmidons, Mr. Nabbem! And when we 

were once at , they took excellent care of us. But tell 

me now, my dear Nabbem,” and Long Ned’s voice wheedled 
itself into something like softness, — “ tell me, do you think 
the grazier will buff it home?” 

“No doubt of that,” said the unmoved Nabbem. Long 
Ned’s face fell. “And what if he does?” said he; “they can 
but transport us ! ” 

“Don’t desave yourself, Master Pepper!” said Nabbem: 
“you’re too old a hand for the herring-pond. They’re re- 
solved to make gallows apples of all such numprels [Nonpa- 
reils'] as you ! ” 

Ned cast a sullen look at the officer. 

“A pretty comforter you are! ” said he. “I have been in a 
post chaise with a pleasanter fellow, I’ll swear! You may 
call me an apple if you will, but, I take it, I am not an apple 
you ’d like to see peeled .” 

With this pugilistic and menacing pun, the lengthy hero 
relapsed into meditative silence. 

Our travellers were now entering a road skirted on one 
side by a common of some extent, and on the other by a thick 
hedgerow, which through its breaks gave occasional glimpses 
of woodland and fallow, interspersed with cross-roads and 
tiny brooklets. 

“There goes a jolly fellow!” said Nabbem, pointing to an 
athletic-looking man, riding before the carriage, dressed in 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


365 


a farmer’s garb, and mounted on a large and powerful horse 
of the Irish breed. “ I dare say he is well acquainted with 
your grazier, Mr. Tomlinson; he looks mortal like one of the 
same kidney ; and here comes another chap ” (as the stranger 
was joined by a short, stout, ruddy man in a carter’s frock, 
riding on a horse less showy than his comrade’s, but of the 
lengthy, reedy, lank, yet muscular race, which a knowing 
jockey would like to bet on). “Now that’s what I calls a 
comely lad ! ” continued Nabbem, pointing to the latter horse- 
man; “none of your thin-faced, dark, strapping fellows like 
that Captain Lovett, as the blowens raves about, but a nice, 
tight little body, with a face like a carrot! That’s a beauty 
for my money! Honesty ’s stamped on his face, Mr. Tomlin- 
son ! I dare says ” (and the officer grinned, for he had been a 
lad of the cross in his own day), — “I dare says, poor innocent 
booby, he knows none of the ways of Lunnun town ; and if he 
has not as merry a life as some folks, mayhap he may have a 
longer. But a merry one forever for such lads as us, Mr. 
Pepper! I say, has you heard as how Bill Fang went to 
Scratchland [Scotland] and was stretched for smashing queer 
screens [that is, hung for uttering forged notes]? He died 
’nation game; for when his father, who was a gray -headed 
parson, came to see him after the sentence, he says to the 
governor, say he, ‘ Give us a tip, old ’un, to pay the expenses, 
and die dacently.’ The parson forks him out ten shiners, 
preaching all the while like winkey. Bob drops one of the 
guineas between his fingers, and says, ‘ Holla, dad, you have 
only tipped us nine of the yellow boys! Just now you said as 
how it was ten! ’ On this the parish-bull, who was as poor 
as if he had been a mouse of the church instead of the curate, 
lugs out another; and Bob, turning round to the jailer, cries, 
‘Flung the governor out of a guinea, by God !’ 1 Now, 
that ’s what I calls keeping it up to the last! ” 

Mr. Nabbem had scarcely finished this anecdote, when the 
farmer-like stranger, who had kept up by the side of the 
chaise, suddenly rode to the window, and touching his hat, 
said in a Norfolk accent, — 


1 Fact. 


366 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“Were the gentlemen we met on the road belonging to your 
party? They were asking after a chaise and pair.” 

“No! ” said Nabbem, “there be no gentlemen as belongs to 
our party!” So saying, he tipped a knowing wink at the 
farmer, and glanced over his shoulder at the prisoners. 

“What! you are going all alone?” said the farmer. 

“Ay, to be sure,” answered Nabbem; “not much danger, I 
think, in the daytime, with the sun out as big as a sixpence, 
which is as big as ever I see’d him in this country! ” 

At that moment the shorter stranger, whose appearance 
had attracted the praise of Mr. Nabbem (that personage was 
himself very short and ruddy), and who had hitherto been 
riding close to the post-horses, and talking to the officers on 
the box, suddenly threw himself from his steed, and in the 
same instant that he arrested the horses of the chaise, struck 
the postilion to the ground with a short heavy bludgeon which 
he drew from his frock. A whistle was heard and answered, 
as if by a signal: three fellows, armed with bludgeons, leaped 
from the hedge ; and in the interim the pretended farmer, dis- 
mounting, flung open the door of the chaise, and seizing Mr. 
Nabbem by the collar, swung him to the ground with a celer- 
ity that became the circular rotundity of the policeman’s figure 
rather than the deliberate gravity of his dignified office. 

Rapid and instantaneous as had been this work, it was not 
without a check. Although the policemen had not dreamed 
of a rescue in the very face of the day and on the high-road, 
their profession was not that which suffered them easily to 
be surprised. The two guardians of the dicky leaped nimbly 
to the ground; but before they had time to use their fire- 
arms, two of the new aggressors, who had appeared from the 
hedge, closed upon them, and bore them to the ground. 
While this scuffle took place, the farmer had disarmed the 
prostrate Nabbem, and giving him in charge to the remaining 
confederate, extricated Tomlinson and his comrade from the 
chaise. 

“Hist!” said he in a whisper, “beware my name; my dis' 
guise hides me at present. Lean on me, — only through the 
hedge ; a cart waits there, and you are safe ! ” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


867 


With these broken words he assisted the robbers as well as 
he could, in spite of their manacles, through the same part 
of the hedge from which the three allies had sprung. They 
were already through the barrier, — only the long legs of 
Ned Pepper lingered behind, — when at the far end of the 
road, which was perfectly straight, a gentleman’s carriage 
became visible. A strong hand from the interior of the 
hedge, seizing Pepper, dragged him through; and Clifford, 
— for the reader need not be told who was the farmer, — 
perceiving the approaching reinforcement, shouted at once for 
flight. The robber who had guarded Nabbem, and who indeed 
was no other than Old Bags, slow as he habitually was, lost 
not an instant in providing for himself ; before you could say 
“Laudamus,” he was on the other side of the hedge. The 
two men engaged with the police-officers were not capable of 
an equal celerity; but Clifford, throwing himself into the 
contest and engaging the policemen, gave the robbers the 
opportunity of escape. They scrambled through the fence; 
the officers, tough fellows and keen, clinging lustily to them, 
till one was felled by Clifford, and the other, catching against 
a stump, was forced to relinquish his hold; he then sprang 
back into the road and prepared for Clifford, who now, how- 
ever, occupied himself rather in fugitive than warlike meas- 
ures. Meanwhile, the moment the other rescuers had passed 
the Rubicon of the hedge, their flight, and that of the gentle- 
men who had passed before them, commenced. On this mys- 
tic side of the hedge was a cross-road, striking at once through 
an intricate and wooded part of the country, which allowed 
speedy and ample opportunities of dispersion. Here a light 
cart, drawn by two swift horses in a tandem fashion, awaited 
the fugitives. Long Ned and Augustus were stowed down at 
the bottom of this vehicle; three fellows filed away at their 
irons, and a fourth, who had hitherto remained inglorious 
with the cart, gave the lash — and he gave it handsomely — 
to the coursers. Away rattled the equipage; and thus was 
achieved a flight still memorable in the annals of the elect, 
and long quoted as one of the boldest and most daring ex- 
ploits that illicit enterprise ever accomplished. 


868 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


Clifford and his equestrian comrade only remained in the 
field, or rather the road. The former sprang at once on his 
horse ; the latter was not long in following the example. But 
the policeman, who, it has been said, baffled in detaining the 
fugitives of the hedge, had leaped back into the road, was not 
idle in the meanwhile. When he saw Clifford about to mount, 
instead of attempting to seize the enemy, he recurred to his 
pistol, which in the late struggle hand to hand he had been 
unable to use, and taking sure aim at Clifford, whom he judged 
at once to be the leader of the rescue, he lodged a ball in the 
right side of the robber at the very moment he had set spurs 
in his horse and turned to fly. Clifford’s head drooped to the 
saddle-bow. Fiercely the horse sprang on. The robber en- 
deavoured, despite his reeling senses, to retain his seat; once 
he raised his head, once he nerved his slackened and listless 
limbs, and then, with a faint groan, he fell to the earth. The 
horse bounded but one step more, and, true to the tutorship it 
had received, stopped abruptly. Clifford raised himself with 
great difficulty on one arm ; with the other hand he drew forth 
a pistol. He pointed it deliberately towards the officer that 
wounded him. The man stood motionless, cowering and spell- 
bound, beneath the dilating eye of the robber. It was but 
for a moment that the man had cause for dread; for mutter- 
ing between his ground teeth, “ Why waste it on an enemy ? ” 
Clifford turned the muzzle towards the head of the uncon- 
scious steed, which seemed sorrowfully and wistfully to 
incline towards him. “Thou,” he said, “whom I have fed 
and loved, shalt never know hardship from another!” and 
with a merciful cruelty he dragged himself one pace nearer 
to his beloved steed, uttered a well-known word, which 
brought the docile creature to his side, and placing the 
muzzle of the pistol close to his ear, he fired, and fell back 
senseless at the exertion. The animal staggered, and dropped 
down dead. 

Meanwhile Clifford’s comrade, profiting by the surprise 
and sudden panic of the officer, was already out of reach, and 
darting across the common, he and his ragged courser speedily 
vanished. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


369 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

Lose I not 

With him what fortune could in life allot ? 

Lose I not hope, life’s cordial ? 

In fact, the lessons he from prudence took 

Were written in his mind as in a book ; 

There what to do he read, and what to shun, 

And all commanded was with promptness done. 

He seemed without a passion to proceed, 

Yet some believed those passions only slept ! 

Crabbe. 

Relics of love, and life’s enchanted spring ! 

A. Watts : On burning a Packet of Letters. 

Many and sad and deep 

Were the thoughts folded in thy silent breast! 

Thou, too, could’st watch and weep ! 

Mrs. Hemans. 

While Sir William Brandon was pursuing his ambitious 
schemes, and, notwithstanding Lucy’s firm and steady refusal 
of Lord Mauleverer, was still determined on that ill-assorted 
marriage; while Mauleverer himself day after day attended 
at the judge’s house, and, though he spoke not of love, looked 
it with all his might, — it became obvious to every one but 
the lover and the guardian, that Lucy herself was rapidly 
declining in appearance and health. Ever since the day she 
had last seen Clifford, her spirits, before greatly shattered, 
had refused to regain even a likeness to their naturally cheer- 
ful and happy tone. She became silent and abstracted; even 
her gentleness of temper altered at times into a moody and 
fretful humour. Neither to books nor music, nor any art by 
which time is beguiled, she recurred for a momentary allevia- 
tion of the bitter feelings at her heart, or for a transient for- 

24 


370 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


getfulness of their sting. The whole world of her mind had 
been shaken. Her pride was wounded, her love galled; her 
faith in Clifford gave way at length to gloomy and dark sus- 
picion. Nothing, she now felt, but a name as well as fortunes 
utterly abandoned, could have justified him for the stubborn- 
ness of heart in which he had fled and deserted her. Her own 
self-acquittal no longer consoled her in affliction. She con- 
demned herself for her weakness, from the birth of her ill- 
starred affection to the crisis it had now acquired. “Why 
did I not wrestle with it at first?” she said bitterly. “Why 
did I allow myself so easily to love one unknown to me, and 
equivocal in station, despite the cautions of my uncle and 
the whispers of the world? ” Alas! Lucy did not remember 
that at the time she was guilty of this weakness, she had not 
learned to reason as she since reasoned. Her faculties were 
but imperfectly awakened; her experience of the world was 
utter ignorance. She scarcely knew that she loved, and she 
knew not at all that the delicious and excited sentiment which 
filled her being could ever become as productive of evil and 
peril as it had done now ; and even had her reason been more 
developed, and her resolutions more strong, does the exertion 
of reason and resolution always avail against the master pas- 
sion? Love, it is true, is not unconquerable; but how few 
have ever, mind and soul, coveted the conquest! Disappoint- 
ment makes a vow, but the heart records it not. Or in the 
noble image of one who has so tenderly and so truly portrayed 
the feelings of her own sex, — 

“ We make 

A ladder of our thoughts where angels step, 

But sleep ourselves at the foot ! ” 1 

Before Clifford had last seen her, we have observed that 
Lucy had (and it was a consolation) clung to the belief that, 
despite of appearances and his own confession, his past life 
had not been such as to place him without the pale of her 
just affections; and there were frequent moments when, 
remembering that the death of her father had removed the 
only being who could assert an unanswerable claim to the 
1 The History of the Lyre, by L. E. L. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


371 


dictation of her actions, she thought that Clifford, hearing 
her hand was utterly at her own disposal, might again appear, 
and again urge a suit which he felt so few circumstances could 
induce her to deny. All this half-acknowledged yet earnest 
train of reasoning and hope vanished from the moment he had 
quitted her uncle’s house. His words bore no misinterpreta- 
tion. He had not yielded even to her own condescension, and 
her cheek burned as she recalled it. Yet he loved her. She 
saw, she knew it in his every word and look ! Bitter, then, 
and dark must be that remorse which could have conquered 
every argument but that which urged him to leave her, when 
he might have claimed her forever. True, that when his 
letter formally bade her farewell, the same self-accusing lan- 
guage was recurred to, the same dark hints and allusions to 
infamy or guilt; yet never till now had she interpreted them 
rigidly, and never till now had she dreamed how far their 
meaning could extend. Still, what crimes could he have Com- 
mitted? The true ones never occurred to Lucy. She shud- 
dered to ask herself, and hushed her doubts in a gloomy and 
torpid silence. But through all her accusations against her- 
self, and through all her awakened suspicions against Clifford, 
she could not but acknowledge that something noble and not 
unworthy of her mingled in his conduct, and occasioned his 
resistance to her and to himself; and this belief, perhaps, 
irritated even while it touched her, and kept her feelings in 
a perpetual struggle and conflict which her delicate frame and 
soft mind were little able to endure. When the nerves once 
break, how breaks the character with them! How many 
ascetics, withered and soured, do we meet in the world, who 
but for one shock to the heart and form might have erred 
on the side of meekness! Whether it come from woe or 
disease, the stroke which mars a single fibre plays strange 
havoc with the mind. Slaves we are to our muscles, and 
puppets to the spring of the capricious blood; and the great 
soul, with all its capacities, its solemn attributes, and sound- 
ing claims, is, while on earth, but a jest to this mountebank, 
— the body, — from the dream which toys with it for an hour, 
to the lunacy which shivers it into a driveller, laughing as it 


872 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


plays with its own fragments, and reeling benighted and 
blinded to the grave! 

We have before said that Lucy was fond both of her uncle 
and his society ; and still, whenever the subject of Lord Maul- 
everer and his suit was left untouched, there was that in the 
conversation of Sir William Brandon which aroused an inter- 
est in her mind, engrossed and self-consuming as it had 
become. Sorrow, indeed, and sorrow’s companion, reflection, 
made her more and more capable of comprehending a very 
subtle and intricate character. There is no secret for discov- 
ering the human heart like affliction, especially the affliction 
which springs from passion. Does a writer startle you with 
his insight into your nature, be sure that he has mourned; 
such lore is the alchemy of tears. Hence the insensible and 
almost universal confusion of idea which confounds melan- 
choly with depth, and finds but hollow inanity in the sym- 
bol of a laugh. Pitiable error! Reflection first leads us to 
gloom, but its next stage is to brightness. The Laughing 
Philosopher had reached the goal of Wisdom; Heraclitus 
whimpered at the starting-post. But enough for Lucy to 
gain even the vestibule of philosophy. 

Notwithstanding the soreness we naturally experience 
towards all who pertinaciously arouse an uupleasant sub- 
ject, and in spite therefore of Brandon’s furtherance of Maul- 
everer’s courtship, Lucy felt herself inclined strangely, and 
with something of a daughter’s affection, towards this enig- 
matical being; in spite, too, of all the cold and measured vice 
of his character, — the hard and wintry grayness of heart with 
which he regarded the welfare of others, or the substances of 
Truth, Honour, and Virtue, — the callousness of his fossilized 
affections, which no human being softened but for a moment, 
and no warm and healthful impulse struck, save into an 
evanescent and idle flash ; — in spite of this consummate 
obduracy and worldliness of temperament, it is not paradox- 
ical to say that there was something in the man which Lucy 
found at times analogous to her own vivid and generous self. 
This was, however, only noticeable when she led him to talk 
over earlier days, and when by degrees the sarcastic lawyer 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


373 


forgot the present, and grew eloquent, not over the actions, 
but the feelings of the past. He would speak to her for hours 
of his youthful dreams, his occupations, or his projects, as a 
boy. Above all, he loved to converse with her upon Warlock, 
its remains of ancient magnificence, the green banks of the 
placid river that enriched its domains, and the summer pomp 
of wood and heath-land, amidst which his noonday visions 
had been nursed. 

When he spoke of these scenes and days, his countenance 
softened, and something in its expression, recalling to Lucy the 
image of one still dearer, made her yearn to him the more. 
An ice seemed broken from his mind, and streams of released 
and gentle feelings, mingled with kindly and generous senti- 
ment, flowed forth. Suddenly a thought, a word, brought 
\him back to 1 the present, — his features withered abruptly 
into their cold placidity or latent sneer; the seal closed sud- 
denly on the broken spell, and, like the victim of a fairy-tale, 
condemned at a stated hour to assume another shape, the very 
being you had listened to seemed vanished, and replaced by 
one whom you startled to behold. But there was one epoch 
of his life on which he was always silent, and that was his 
first onset into the actual world, — the period of his early 
struggle into wealth and fame. All that space of time seemed 
as a dark gulf, over which he had passed, and become changed 
at once, — as a traveller landing in a strange climate may 
adopt, the moment he touches its shore, its costume and its 
language. 

All men — the most modest — have a common failing; but 
it is one which often assumes the domino and mask, — pride ! 
Brandon was, however, proud to a degree very rare in men 
who have risen and flourished in the world. Out of the 
wrecks of all other feelings this imperial survivor made one 
great palace for its residence, and called the fabric “Disdain.” 
Scorn was the real essence of Brandon’s nature; even in the 
blandest disguises, the smoothness of his voice, the insinuation 
of his smile, the popular and supple graces of his manners, an 
oily derision floated, rarely discernible, it is true, but propor- 
tioning its strength and quantum to the calm it produced. 


374 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


In the interim, while his character thus displayed and 
contradicted itself in private life, his fame was rapidly rising 
in public estimation. Unlike many of his brethren, the 
brilliant lawyer had exceeded expectation, and shone even 
yet more conspicuously in the less adventitiously aided duties 
of the judge. Envy itself — and Brandon’s political virulence 
had, despite his personal affability, made him many foes — 
was driven into acknowledging the profundity of his legal 
knowledge, and in admiring the manner in which the pecu- 
liar functions of his novel dignity were discharged. No juve- 
nile lawyer browbeat, no hackneyed casuist puzzled, him; 
even his attention never wandered from the dullest case sub- 
jected to his tribunal. A painter, desirous of stamping on 
his canvas the portrait of an upright judge, could scarcely 
have found a finer realization for his beau-ideal than the 
austere, collected, keen, yet majestic countenance of Sir Wil- 
liam Brandon, such as it seemed in the trappings of office and 
from the seat of justice. 

The newspapers were not slow in recording the singular 
capture of the notorious Lovett. The boldness with which 
he had planned and executed the rescue of his comrades, 
joined to the suspense in which his wound for some time 
kept the public, as to his escape from one death by the pos- 
tern gate of another, caused a very considerable ferment and 
excitation in the popular mind ; and, to feed the impulse, the 
journalists were little slothful in retailing every anecdote, true 
or false, which they could collect touching the past adventures 
of the daring highwayman. Many a good story then came to 
light, which partook as much of tne comic as the tragic, — 
for not a single one of the robber’s adventures was noted 
for cruelty or bloodshed; many of them betokened rather an 
hilarious and jovial spirit of mirthful enterprise. It seemed 
as if he had thought the highway a capital arena for jokes, 
and only robbed for the sake of venting a redundant affection 
for jesting. Persons felt it rather a sin to be severe with a 
man of so merry a disposition; and it was especially observa- 
ble that not one of the ladies who had been despoiled by the 
robber could be prevailed on to prosecute; on the contrary, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


375 


they always talked of the event as one of the most agreeable 
remembrances in their lives, and seemed to bear a provoking 
gratitude to the comely offender, rather than resentment. All 
the gentlemen were not, however, of so placable a temper; 
and two sturdy farmers, with a grazier to boot, were ready to 
swear, “through thick and thin,” to the identity of the pris- 
oner with a horseman who had civilly borne each of them com- 
pany for an hour in their several homeward rides from certain 
fairs, and had carried the pleasure of his society, they very 
gravely asserted, considerably beyond a joke; so that the 
state of the prisoner’s affairs took a very sombre aspect, and 
the counsel — an old hand — intrusted with his cause declared 
confidentially that there was not a chance. But a yet more 
weighty accusation, because it came from a much nobler quar- 
ter, awaited Clifford. In the robbers’ cavern were found sev- 
eral articles answering exactly to the description of those 
valuables feloniously abstracted from the person of Lord 
Mauleverer. That nobleman attended to inspect the articles, 
and to view the prisoner. The former he found himself able 
to swear to, with a very tranquillized conscience; the latter 
he beheld feverish, attenuated, and in a moment of delirium, 
on the sick-bed to which his wound had brought him. He was 
at no loss, however, to recognize in the imprisoned fielon the 
gay and conquering Clifford, whom he had once even honoured 
with his envy. Although his former dim and vague suspi- 
cions of Clifford were thus confirmed, the good-natured peer 
felt some slight compunction at appearing as his prosecutor. 
This compunction, however, vanished the moment he left the 
sick man’s apartment; and after a little patriotic conversation 
with the magistrates about the necessity of public duty, — a 
theme which brought virtuous tears into the eyes of those 
respectable functionaries, — he re-entered his carriage, re- 
turned to town, and after a lively dinner tete-a-tete with an 
old chtre amie, who, of all her charms, had preserved only the 
attraction of conversation and the capacity of relishing a 
salmi, Mauleverer, the very evening of his return, betook 
himself to the house of Sir William Brandon. 

When he entered the hall, Barlow, the judge’s favourite 


376 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


servant, met him, with rather a confused and mysterious air, 
and arresting him as he was sauntering into Brandon’s library, 
informed him that Sir William was particularly engaged, but 
would join his lordship in the drawing-room. While Barlow 
was yet speaking, and Mauleverer was bending his right ear 
(with which he heard the best) towards him, the library door 
opened, and a man in a very coarse and ruffianly garb awk- 
wardly bowed himself out. 

“So this is the particular engagement,” thought Maul- 
everer, — “a strange Sir Pandarus; but those old fellows have 
droll tastes.” 

“I may go in now, my good fellow, I suppose?” said his 
lordship to Barlow; and without waiting an answer, he en- 
tered the library. He found Brandon alone, and bending 
earnestly over some letters which strewed his table. Maul- 
everer carelessly approached, and threw himself into an oppo- 
site chair. Sir William lifted his head, as he heard the 
movement; and Mauleverer, reckless as was that personage, 
was chilled and almost awed by the expression of his friend’s 
countenance. Brandon’s face was one which, however pliant, 
nearly always wore one pervading character, — calmness ; 
whether in the smoothness of social courtesy, or the austerity 
of his official station, or the bitter sarcasm which escaped him 
at no unfrequent intervals, still a certain hard and inflexible 
dryness stamped both his features and his air. But at this 
time a variety of feelings not ordinarily eloquent in the out- 
ward man struggled in his dark face, expressive of all the 
energy and passion of his powerful and masculine nature; 
there seemed to speak from his features and eyes something 
of shame and anger and triumph and regret and scorn. All 
these various emotions, which it appears almost a paradox to 
assert met in the same expression, nevertheless were so indi- 
vidually and almost fearfully stamped as to convey at once 
their signification to the mind of Mauleverer. He glanced 
towards the letters, in which the writing seemed faint and 
discoloured by time or damp ; and then once more regarding 
the face of Brandon, said in rather an anxious and subdued 
tone, — 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 377 

“Heavens, Brandon! are you ill; or has anything hap- 
pened? You alarm me!” 

“Do you recognize these locks?” said Brandon, in a hollow 
voice ; and from under the letters he drew some ringlets of an 
auburn hue, and pushed them with an averted face towards 
Mauleverer. 

The earl took them up, regarded them for a few moments, 
changed colour, but shook his head with a negative gesture, 
as he laid them once more on the table. 

“This handwriting, then?” .renewed the judge, in a yet 
more impressive and painful voice; and he pointed to the 
letters. 

Mauleverer raised one of them, and held it between his face 
and the lamp, so that whatever his features might have be- 
trayed was hidden from his companion. At length he dropped 
the letter with an affected nonchalance , and said, — 

“Ah, I know the writing even at this distance of time; this 
letter is directed to you ! ” 

“It is; so are all these,” said Brandon, with the same voice 
of preternatural and strained composure. “ They have come 
back to me after an absence of nearly twenty-five years; they 
are the letters she wrote to me in the days of our courtship ” 
(here Brandon laughed scornfully), — “ she carried them away 
with her, you know when; and (a pretty clod of consistency 
is woman!) she kept them, it seems, to her dying day.” 

The subject in discussion, whatever it might be, appeared 
a sore one to Mauleverer; he turned uneasily on his chair, 
and said at length, — 

“Well, poor creature ! these are painful remembrances, since 
it turned out so unhappily; but it was not our fault, dear 
Brandon. We were men of the world; we knew the value of 
— of women, and treated them accordingly!” 

“Right! ri^ht! right!” cried Brandon, vehemently, laugh- 
ing in a wild and loud disdain, the intense force of which it 
would be in vain to attempt expressing. “Right! and, faith, 
my lord, I repine not, nor repent.” 

“So, so, that’s well!” said Mauleverer, still not at his 
ease, and hastening to change the conversation. “But, my 


3T8 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


dear Brandon, I have strange news for you! You remember 
that fellow Clifford, who had the insolence to address himself 
to your adorable niece? I told you I suspected that long 
friend of his of having made my acquaintance somewhat 
unpleasantly, and I therefore doubted of Clifford himself. 
Well, my dear friend, this Clifford is — whom do you think? 

— no other than Mr. Lovett of Newgate celebrity! ” 

“ You do not say so!” rejoined Brandon, apathetically, as 
he slowly gathered his papers together and deposited them in 
a drawer. 

“ Indeed it is true; and what is more, Brandon, this fellow 
is one of the very identical highwaymen who robbed me on 
my road from Bath. No doubt he did me the same kind 
office on my road to Mauleverer Park.” 

“Possibly,” said Brandon, who appeared absorbed in a 
revery. 

“Ay!” answered Mauleverer, piqued at this indifference. 
“But do you not see the consequences to your niece?” 

“ My niece ! ” repeated Brandon, rousing himself. 

“ Certainly. I grieve to say it, my dear friend, — but she 
was young, very young, when at Bath. She suffered this fel- 
low to address her too openly. Nay, — for I will be frank, 

— she was suspected of being in love with him ! ” 

“She was in love with him,” said Brandon, dryly, and 
fixing the malignant coldness of his eye upon the suitor. 
“And, for aught I know,” added he, “she is so at this 
moment.” 

“You are cruel!” said Mauleverer, disconcerted. “I trust 
not, for the sake of my continued addresses.” 

“My dear lord,” said Brandon, urbanely taking the cour- 
tier’s hand, while the anguis in herba of his sneer played 
around his compressed lips, — “my dear lord, we are old 
friends, and need not deceive each other. You wish to marry 
my niece because she is an heiress of great fortune, and you 
suppose that my wealth will in all probability swell her own. 
Moreover, she is more beautiful than any other young lady of 
your acquaintance, and, polished by your example, may do 
honour to your taste as well as your prudence. Under these 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


379 


circumstances, you will, I am quite sure, look with lenity on 
her girlish errors, and not love her the less because her 
foolish fancy persuades her that she is in love with another.” 

“Ahem!” said Mauleverer, “you view the matter with 
more sense than sentiment; but look you, Brandon, we must 
try, for both our sakes, if possible, to keep the identity of 
Lovett with Clifford from being known. I do not see why 
it should be. No doubt he was on his guard while playing 
the gallant, and committed no atrocity at Bath. The name 
of Clifford is hitherto perfectly unsullied. No fraud, no 
violence are attached to the appellation; and if the rogue 
will but keep his own counsel, we may hang him out of the 
way without the secret transpiring.” 

“But if I reinember right,” said Brandon, “the newspapers 
say that this Lovett will be tried some seventy or eighty miles 
only from Bath, and that gives a chance of recognition.” 

“ Ay, but he will be devilishly altered, 1 imagine ; for his 
wound has already been but a bad beautifier to his face. 
Moreover, if the dog has any delicacy, he will naturally 
dislike to be known as the gallant of that gay city where 
he shone so successfully, and will disguise himself as well 
as he is able. I hear wonders of his powers of self- 
transformation.” 

“ But he may commit himself on the point between this and 
his trial,” said Brandon. 

“ I think of ascertaining how far that is likely, by sending 
my valet down to him (you know one treats these gentlemen 
highwaymen with a certain consideration, and hangs them 
with all due respect to their feelings), to hint that it will be 
doubtless very unpleasant to him, under his ‘ present unfortu- 
nate circumstances 7 (is not that the phrase?), to be known 
as the gentleman who enjoyed so deserved a popularity at 
Bath, and that, though ‘ the laws of my country compel me ’ 
to prosecute him, yet, should he desire it, he may be certain 
that I will preserve his secret. Come, Brandon, what say 
you to that manoeuvre? It will answer my purpose, and make 
the gentleman — for doubtless he is all sensibility — shed 
tears at my generous forbearance ! ” 


380 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“It is no bad idea,” said Brandon. “I commend you for it. 
At all events, it is necessary that my niece should not know 
the situation of her lover. She is a girl of a singular turn of 
mind, and fortune has made her independent. Who knows 
but that she might commit some folly or another, write peti- 
tions to the king, and beg me to present them, or go — for she 
has a world of romance in her — to prison, to console him; 
or, at all events, she would beg my kind offices on his behalf, 
— a request peculiarly awkward, as in all probability I shall 
have the honour of trying him.” 

“Ay, by the by, so you will. And I fancy the poor rogue’s 
audacity will not cause you to be less severe than you usually 
are. They say you promise to make more human pendulums 
than any of your brethren.” 

“They do say that, do they?” said Brandon. “Well, I 
own I have a bile against my species ; I loathe their folly and 
their half vices. ‘Bidet et odit ’ 1 is my motto; and I allow 
that it is not the philosophy that makes men merciful! ” 

“Well, Juvenal’s wisdom be yours, mine be Horace’s!” 
rejoined Mauleverer, as he picked his teeth; “but I am glad 
you see the absolute necessity of keeping this secret from 
Lucy’s suspicion. She never reads the papers, I suppose? 
Girls never do ! ” 

“No! and I will take care not to have them thrown in her 
way; and as, in consequence of my poor brother’s recent death, 
she sees nobody but us, there is little chance, should Lovett’s 
right to the name of Clifford be discovered, that it should 
reach her ears.” 

“But those confounded servants?” 

“True enough! But consider that before they know it, the 
newspapers will; so that, should it be needful, we shall have 
our own time to caution them. I need only say to Lucy’s 
woman, ‘A poor gentleman, a friend of the late squire, whom 
your mistress used to dance with, and you must have seen, — 
Captain Clifford, — is to be tried for his life. It will shock 
her, poor thing ! in her present state of health, to tell her of 
so sad an event to her father’s friend; therefore be silent, as 
1 “ He laughs and hates.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


381 


you value your place and ten guineas, ’ — and 1 may be tolera- 
bly sure of caution ! ” 

“ You ought to be chairman to the Ways and Means Com- 
mittee !” cried Mauleverer. “My mind is now easy; aud 
when once poor Clifford is gone, —fallen from a high estate, 
— we may break the matter gently to her; and as I intend 
thereon to be very respectful, very delicate, etc., she cannot 
but be sensible of my kindness and real affection ! ” 

“And if a live dog be better than a dead lion,” added 
Brandon, “surely a lord in existence will be better than a 
highwayman hanged! ” 

“According to ordinary logic,” rejoined Mauleverer, “that 
syllogism is clear enough; and though I believe a girl may 
cling now and then to the memory of a departed lover, I do 
not think she will when the memory is allied with shame. 
Love is nothing more than vanity pleased; wound the vanity, 
and you destroy the love! Lucy will be forced, after having 
made so bad a choice of a lover, to make a good one in a hus- 
band, in order to recover her self-esteem ! ” 

“And therefore you are certain of her!” said Brandon, 
ironically. 

“ Thanks to my star, — my garter, — my ancestor, the first 
baron, and myself, the first earl, — I hope I am,” said Maul- 
everer; and the conversation turned. Mauleverer did not 
stay much longer with the judge; and Brandon, left alone, 
recurred once more to the perusal of his letters. 

We scarcely know what sensations it would have occasioned 
in one who had known Brandon only in his later years, could 
he have read those letters referring to so much earlier a date. 
There was in the keen and arid character of the man so little 
that recalled any idea of courtship or youthful gallantry that 
a correspondence of that nature would have appeared almost 
as unnatural as the loves of plants, or the amatory softenings 
of a mineral. The correspondence now before Brandon was 
descriptive of various feelings, but all appertaining to the 
same class; most of them were apparent answers to letters 
from him. One while they replied tenderly to expressions 
of tenderness, but intimated a doubt whether the writer 


382 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


would be able to constitute his future happiness, and atone 
for certain sacrifices of birth and fortune and ambitious pros- 
pects, to which she alluded : at other times, a vein of latent 
coquetry seemed to pervade the style, — an indescribable air 
of coolness and reserve contrasted former passages in the cor- 
respondence, and was calculated to convey to the reader an 
impression that the feelings of the lover were not altogether 
adequately returned. Frequently the writer, as if Brandon 
had expressed himself sensible of this conviction, reproached 
him for unjust jealousy and unworthy suspicion. And the 
tone of the reproach varied in each letter; sometimes it was 
gay and satirizing; at others soft and expostulatory ; at others 
gravely reasoning, and often haughtily indignant. Still, 
throughout the whole correspondence, on the part of the 
mistress, there was a sufficient stamp of individuality to give 
a shrewd examiner some probable guess at the writer’s char- 
acter. He would have judged her, perhaps, capable of strong 
and ardent feeling, but ordinarily of a light and capricious 
turn, and seemingly prone to imagine and to resent offence. 
With these letters were mingled others in Brandon’s writing, 
— of how different, of how impassioned a description! All 
that a deep, proud, meditative, exacting character could 
dream of love given, or require of love returned, was poured 
burningly over the pages; yet they were full of reproach, of 
jealousy, of a nice and torturing observation, as calculated to 
wound as the ardour might be fitted to charm; and often the 
bitter tendency to disdain that distinguished his temperament 
broke through the fondest enthusiasm of courtship or the 
softest outpourings of love. 

11 You saw me not yesterday,” he wrote in one letter, u but I saw 
you; all day I was by you : you gave not a look which passed me un- 
noticed ; you made not a movement which I did not chronicle in my 
memory. Julia, do you tremble when I tell you this? Yes, if you 
have a heart, I know these words would stab it to the core ! You may 
affect to answer me indignantly ! Wise dissembler ! it is very skilful, 
very, to assume anger when you have no reply. I repeat during the 
whole of that party of pleasure (pleasure ! well, your tastes, it must be 
acknowledged, are exquisite !) which you enjoyed yesterday, and which 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


383 


you so faintly asked me to share, my eye was on you. You did not 
know that I was in the wood when you took the arm of the incompara- 
ble Digby, with so pretty a semblance of alarm at the moment the snake 
which my foot disturbed glided across your path. You did not know I 
w T as within hearing of the tent where you made so agreeable a repast, 
and from which your laughter sent peals so many and so numerous. 
Laughter ! 0 J ulia, can you tell me that you love, and yet be happy, 

even to mirth, when I am away ! Love ! 0 God, how different a 

sensation is mine! Mine makes my whole principle of life! Yours! 
I tell you that I think at moments I would rather have your hate than 
the lukewarm sentiment you bear to me, and honour by the name ot‘ 
‘affection.’ Pretty phrase ! I have no affection for you ! Give me not 
that sickly word; but try with me, Julia, to invent some expression that 
has never filtered a paltry meaning through the lips of another! Affec- 
tion ! why, that is a sister’s word, a girl’s word to her pet squirrel ! 
Never was it made for that ruby and most ripe mouth ! Shall I come 
to your house this evening ? Your mother has asked me, and you — 
you heard her, and said nothing. Oh ! but that was maiden' reserve, 
was it ? and maiden reserve caused you to take up a book the moment 
I left you, as if my company made but an ordinary amusement instantly 
to be replaced by another ! When I have seen you, society, books, 
food, all are hateful to me ; but you, sweet Julia, you can read, can you? 
Why, when I left you, I lingered by the parlour window for hours, till 
dusk, and you never once lifted your eyes, nor saw me pass and repass. 
At least I thought you would have watched my steps when I left the 
house ; but I err, charming moralist ! According to you, that vigilance 
would have been meanness.” 

In another part of the correspondence a more grave if not a 
deeper gush of feeling struggled for expression. 

u You say, Julia, that were you to marry one who thinks so much of 
what he surrenders for you, and who requires from yourself so vast a 
return of love, you should tremble for the future happiness of both of us. 
Julia, the triteness of that fear proves that you love not at all. I do 
not tremble for our future happiness ; on the contrary, the intensity of 
my passion for you makes me know that we never can be happy, never 
beyond the first rapture of our union. Happiness is a quiet and tran- 
quil feeling. No feeling that I can possibly bear to you will ever re- 
ceive those epithets, — I know that I shall be wretched and accursed 
when I am united to you. Start not ! I will presently tell you why. 
But I do not dream of happiness, neither (could you fathom one drop of 


884 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


the dark and limitless ocean of my emotions) would you name to me 
that word. It is not the mercantile and callous calculation of chances 
for 1 future felicity ’ (what homily supplied you with so choice a term ?) 
that enters into the heart that cherishes an all-pervading love. Passion 
looks only to one object, to nothing beyond ; I thirst, I consume, not 
for happiness, but you. Were your possession inevitably to lead me to 
a gulf of anguish and shame, think you I should covet it one jot the 
less? If you carry one thought, one hope, one dim fancy, beyond the 
event that makes you mine, you may be more worthy of the esteem of 
others, but you are utterly undeserving of my love. 

u I will tell you now why I know we cannot be happy. In the first 
place, when you say that I am proud of birth, that I am morbidly am- 
bitious, that I am anxious to shine in the great world, and that after 
the first intoxication of love has passed away I shall feel bitterness 
against one who has so humbled my pride and darkened, my prospects, 
I am not sure that you wholly err. But I am sure that the instant 
remedy is in your power. Have you patience, Julia, to listen to a kind 
of history of myself, or rather of my feelings ? If so, perhaps it may be 
the best method of explaining all that I would convey. You will see, 
then, that my family pride and my worldly ambition are not founded 
altogether on those basements which move my laughter in another ; if 
my feelings thereon are really, however, as you would insinuate, equal 
matter for derision, behold, my Julia, I can laugh equally at them ! So 
pleasant a thing to me is scorn, that I would rather despise myself than 
have no one to despise ! But to my narrative ! You must know that 
there are but two of us, sons of a country squire, of old family, which 
once possessed large possessions and something of historical renown. 
We lived in an old country-place; my father was a convivial dog, a 
fox-hunter, a drunkard, yet in his way a fine gentleman, — and a very 
disreputable member of society. The first feelings towards him that I 
can remember were those of shame. Not much matter of family pride 
here, you will say ! True, and that is exactly the reason which made 
me cherish family pride elsewhere. My father’s house was filled with 
guests, — some high and some low ; they all united in ridicule of the 
host. I soon detected the laughter, and you may imagine that it did 
not please me. Meanwhile the old huntsman, whose family was about 
as ancient as ours, and whose ancestors had officiated in his capacity for 
the ancestors of his master time out of mind, told me story after story 
about the Brandons of yore. I turned from the stories to more legiti- 
mate history, and found the legends were tolerably true. I learned to 
glow at this discovery ; the pride, humbled when I remembered my sire, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


385 


revived when I remembered my ancestors. I became resolved to emu- 
late them, to restore a sunken name, and vowed a world of nonsense on 
the subject. The habit of brooding over these ideas grew on me. I 
never heard a jest broken on my paternal guardian, I never caught the 
maudlin look of his reeling eyes, nor listened to some exquisite inanity 
from his besotted lips, but that my thoughts flew instantly back to the 
Sir Charleses and the Sir Roberts of my race, and I comforted myself 
with the hope that the present degeneracy should pass away. Hence, 
Julia, my family pride ; hence, too, another feeling you dislike in me, — 
disdain ! I first learned to despise my father, the host, and I then de- 
spised my acquaintances, his guests; for I saw, while they laughed at 
him, that they flattered, and that their merriiAent was not the only thing 
suffered to feed at his expense. Thus contempt grew up with me, and 
I had nothing to check it ; for when I looked around I saw not one 
living thing that I could respect. This father of mine had the sense to 
think I was no idiot. He was proud (poor man !) of * my talents/ — 
namely, of prizes won at school, and congratulatory letters from my 
masters. He sent me to college. My mind took a leap there; I will 
tell you, prettiest, what it was ! Before I went thither I had some fine 
vague visions about virtue. I thought to revive my ancestral honours 
by being good; in short, I was an embryo King Pepin. I awoke from 
this dream at the University. There, for the first time, I perceived the 
real consequence of rank. 

11 At school, you know, Julia, boys care nothing for a lord. A good 
cricketer, an excellent fellow, is worth all the earls in the peerage. But 
at college all that ceases; bats and balls sink into the nothingness in 
which corals and bells had sunk before. One grows manly, and wor- 
ships coronets and carriages. I saw it was a fine thing to get a prize, 
but it was ten times a finer thing to get druuk with a peer. So, when 
I had done the first, my resolve to be worthy of my sires made me do 
the second, — not, indeed, exactly; I never got drunk: my father dis- 
gusted me with that vice betimes. To his gluttony I owe my vegetable 
diet, and to his inebriety my addiction to water. No, I did not get 
drunk with peers ; but I was just as agreeable to them as if I had been 
equally embruted. I knew intimately all the 1 Hats 1 1 in the University, 
and I was henceforth looked up to by the 1 Caps/ as if my head had 
gained the height of every hat that I knew. But I did not do this im- 
mediately. I must tell you two little anecdotes that first initiated me 
into the secret of real greatness. 

1 At Cambridge the sons of noblemen and the eldest sons of baronets are 
allowed to wear hats instead of the academical cap. 

25 


386 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


u The first was this : 1 was sitting at dinner with some fellows of a 
college, grave men and clever. Two of them, not knowing me, were 
conversing about me ; they heard, they said, that I should never be so 
good a fellow as my father, — have such a cellar or keep such a house 
‘ I have met six earls there and a marquess, 7 quoth the other senior. 
1 And liis son, 7 returned the first don, 4 only keeps company with sizars, 
I believe. 7 4 So then, 7 said I to myself, 4 to deserve the praise even of 
clever men, one must have good wines, know plenty of earls, and for- 
swear sizars. 7 Nothing could be truer than my conclusion. 

u Anecdote the second is this : On the day I gained a high university 
prize I invited my friends to dine with me. Four of them refused be- 
cause they were engaged (they had been asked since I asked them), — 
to whom? the richest man at the University. These occurrences, hap- 
pening at the same time, threw me into a profound revery. I awoke, 
and became a man of the world. I no longer resolved to be virtuous, 
and to hunt after the glory of your Romans and your Athenians, — I 
resolved to become rich, powerful, and of worldly repute. 

44 I abjured my honest sizars, and as I said before, I courted some 
rich 4 Hats. 7 Behold my first grand step in the world ! I became the 
parasite and the flatterer. What ! would my pride suffer this ? Verily, 
yes, my pride delighted in it ; for it soothed my spirit of contempt to 
put these fine fellows to my use ! It soothed me to see how easily I 
could cajole them, and to what a variety of purposes I could apply even 
the wearisome disgust of their acquaintance. Nothing is so foolish as 
to say the idle great are of no use ; they can be put to any use whatso- 
ever that a wise man is inclined to make of them. Well, Julia, lo ! my 
character already formed; the family pride, disdain, and worldly am- 
bition, — there it is for you. After circumstances only strengthened the 
impression already made. I desired, on leaving college, to go abroad ; 
my father had no money to give me. What signified that? I looked 
carelessly around for some wealthier convenience than the paternal 
hoard ; I found it in a Lord Mauleverer. He had been at college with 
me, and I endured him easily as a companion, — for he had accomplish- 
ments, wit, and good-nature. I made him wish to go abroad, and I 
made him think he should die of ennui if I did not accompany him. To 
his request to that effect I reluctantly agreed, and saw everything in 
Europe, which he neglected to see, at his expense. What amused me 
the most was the perception that I, the parasite, was respected by him ; 
and he, the patron, was ridiculed by me ! It would not have been so if 
I had depended on 4 my virtue. 7 Well, sweetest Julia, the world, as I 
have said, gave to my college experience a sacred authority. I returned 
to England ; and my father died, leaving to me not a sixpence, and to 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


387 


my brother an estate so mortgaged that he could no enjoy it, and so 
restricted that he could not sell it. It was now the time for me to profit 
by the experience I boasted of. I saw that it was necessary I should 
take some profession. Professions are the masks to your pauper-rogue; 
they give respectability to cheating, and a diploma to feed upon others. 
I analyzed my talents, and looked to the customs of my country ; the 
result was my resolution to take to the Bar. I had an inexhaustible 
power of application ; I was keen, shrewd, and audacious. All these 
qualities ‘ tell ’ at the courts of justice. I kept my legitimate number of 
terms ; I was called ; I went the circuit ; I obtained not a brief, — not 
a brief, Julia! My health, never robust, gave way beneath study and 
irritation. I was ordered to betake myself /o the country. I came to 
this village, as one both salubrious and obscure. I lodged in the house 
of your aunt; you came hither daily, — I saw you, — you know the 
rest. But where, all this time, were my noble friends? you will say. 
’Sdeath, since we had left college, they had learned a little of the wis- 
dom I had then possessed ; they were not disposed to give something 
for nothing; they had younger brothers, and cousins, and mistresses, 
and, for aught I know, children to provide for. Besides, they had their 
own expenses ; the richer a man is, the less he has to give. One of 
them would have bestowed on me a living, if I had gone into the Church ; 
another, a commission if I had joined his regiment. But I knew the 
day was past both for priest and soldier ; and it was not merely to live, 
no, nor to live comfortably, but to enjoy power, that I desired ; so I 
declined these offers. Others of my friends would have been delighted 
to have kept me in their house, feasted me, joked with me, rode with 
me, nothing more ! But I had already the sense to see that if a man 
dances himself into distinction, it is never by the steps of attendance. 
One must receive favours and court patronage, but it must be with the 
air of an independent man. My old friends thus rendered useless, my 
legal studies forbade me to make new, nay, they even estranged me 
from the old ; for people may say what they please about a similarity of 
opinions being necessary to friendship, — a similarity of habits is much 
more so. It is the man you dine, breakfast, and lodge with, walk, ride, 
gamble, or thieve with, that is your friend ; not the man who likes 
Virgil as well as you do, and agrees with you in an admiration of Handel. 
Meanwhile my chief prey, Lord Mauleverer, was gone ; he had taken 
another man’s Dulcinea, and sought out a bower in Italy. From that 
time to this I have never heard of him nor seen him ; I know not even 
his address. With the exception of a few stray gleanings from my 
brother, who, good easy man ! I could plunder more, were I not resolved 
not to ruin the family stock, I have been thrown on myself ; the result is 


388 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


that, though as clever as my fellows, I have narrowly shunned starvation, 
— had my wants been less simple, there would have been no shunning in 
the case ; but a man is not easily starved who drinks water, and eats by 
the ounce. A more effectual fate might have befallen me. Disappoint- 
ment, wrath, baffled hope, mortified pride, all these, which gnawed at my 
heart, might have consumed it long ago ; I might have fretted away as 
a garment which the moth eateth, had it not been for that fund of obsti- 
nate and iron hardness which nature I beg pardon, there is no na- 
ture — circumstance bestowed upon me. This has borne me up, and 
will bear me yet through time and shame and bodily weakness and men- 
tal fever, until my ambition has won a certain height, and my disdain of 
human pettiness rioted in the external sources of fortune, as well as an 
inward fountain of bitter and self- fed consolation. Yet, oh, Julia! I 
know not if even this would have supported me, if at that epoch of life, 
when I was most wounded, most stricken in body, most soured in mind, 
my heart had not met and fastened itself to yours. I saw you, loved 
you ; and life became to me a new object. Even now, as I write to you, 
all my bitterness, my pride, vanish ; everything I have longed for dis- 
appears ; my very ambition is gone. I have no hope but for you, 
Julia; beautiful, adored Julia ! when I love you, I love even my kind. 
Oh, you know not the power you possess over me ! Do not betray it ; 
you can yet make me all that my boyhood once dreamed, or you can 
harden every thought, feeling, sensation, into stone. 

u I was to tell you why I look not for happiness in our union. You 
have now seen my nature. You have traced the history of my life, by 
tracing the history of my character. You see what I surrender in gain- 
ing you. I do not deny the sacrifice. I surrender the very essentials of 
my present mind and soul. I cease to be worldly. I cannot raise my- 
self, I cannot revive my ancestral name ; nay, I shall relinquish it for- 
ever. I shall adopt a disguised appellation. I shall sink into another 
grade of life. In some remote village, by means of some humbler pro- 
fession than that I now follow, we must earn our subsistence, and smile 
at ambition. I tell you frankly, Julia, when I close the eyes of my 
heart, when I shut you from my gaze, this sacrifice appalls me. But 
even then you- force yourself before me, and I feel that one glance from 
your eye is more to me than all. If you could bear with me, — if you 
could soothe me, — if when a cloud is on me you could suffer it to pass 
away unnoticed, and smile on me the moment it is gone, — 0 Julia! 
there would be then no extreme of poverty, no abasement of fortune, no 
abandonment of early dreams which would not seem to me rapture if 
coupled with the bliss of knowing that you are mine. Never should 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


389 


my lip, never should my eye tell you that there is that thing on earth 
for which I repine or which I could desire. No, Julia, could I flatter 
my heart with this hope, you would not find me dream of unhappiness 
and you united. But I tremble, Julia, when I think of your temper 
and my own ; you will conceive a gloomy look from one never mirthful 
is an insult, and you will feel every vent of passion on Fortune or on 
others as a reproach to you. Then, too, you cannot enter into my na- 
ture ; you cannot descend into its caverns ; you cannot behold, much 
less can you deign to lull, the exacting and lynx-eyed jealousy that 
dwells there. Sweetest Julia! every breath of yours, every touch of 
yours, every look of yours, I yearn for beyond all a mother’s longing for 
the child that has been torn from her for years. Your head leaned 

upon an old tree (do you remember it, near ?), and I went every 

day, after seeing you, to kiss it. Do you wonder that I am jealous ? 
How can I love you as I do and be otherwise ? My whole being is 
intoxicated with yotf ! 

“ This then, your pride and mine, your pleasure in the admiration of 
others, your lightness, Julia, make me foresee an eternal and gushing 
source of torture to my mind. I care not ; I care for nothing so that 
you are mine, if but for one hour.” 

It seems that, despite the strange, sometimes the unlover- 
like and fiercely selfish nature of these letters from Brandon, 
something of a genuine tone of passion, — perhaps their origi- 
nality, — aided, no doubt, by some uttered eloquence of the 
writer and some treacherous inclination on the part of the mis- 
tress, ultimately conquered; and that a union so little likely to 
receive the smile of a prosperous star was at length concluded. 
The letter which terminated the correspondence was from 
Brandon : it was written on the evening before the marriage, 
which, it appeared by the same letter, was to be private and 
concealed. After a rapturous burst of hope and joy, it con- 
tinued thus : — 

“Yes, Julia, I recant my words ; I have no belief that you or I shall 
ever have cause hereafter for unhappiness. Those eyes that dwelt so 
tenderly on mine ; that hand whose pressure lingers yet in every nerve 
of my frame; those lips turned so coyly, yet, shall I say, reluctantly 
from me, — all tell me that you love me ; and my fears are banished. 
Love, which conquered my nature, will conquer the only thing I would 


390 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


desire to see altered in yours. Nothing could ever make me adore you 
less, though you affect to dread it, — nothing hut a knowledge that you 
are unworthy of me, that you have a thought for another; then I 
should not hate you. No; the privilege of my past existence would 
revive ; I should revel in a luxury of contempt, I should despise you, 
I should mock you, and I should he once more what I was before I 
knew you. But why do I talk thus f My bride, my blessing, for 
give me ! v 

In concluding our extracts from this correspondence, we 
wish the reader to note, first, that the love professed by Bran- 
don seems of that vehement and corporeal nature which, while 
it is often the least durable, is often the most susceptible of 
the fiercest extremes of hatred or even of disgust; secondly, 
that the character opened by this sarcastic candour evidently 
required in a mistress either an utter devotion or a skilful 
address ; and thirdly, that we have hinted at such qualities in 
the fair correspondent as did not seem sanguinely to promise 
either of these essentials. 

While with a curled yet often with a quivering lip the 
austere and sarcastic Brandon, slowly compelled himself to 
the task of proceeding through these monuments of former 
, folly and youthful emotion, the further elucidation of those 
events, now rapidly urging on a fatal and dread catastrophe, 
spreads before us a narrative occurring many years prior to 
the time at which we are at present arrived. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


391 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Clem. Lift the dark veil of years ! Behind, what waits? 

A human heart. Vast city, where reside 
All glories and all vilenesses ; while foul, 

Yet silent, through the roar of passions rolls 
The river of the Darling Sin, and bears 
A life and yet a poison on its tide. 

Clem. Thy wife ? 

Viet. Avaunt ! I ’ve changed that word to “ scorn ” ! 

Clem. Thy child? 

Viet. Ay, that strikes home, — my child, my child ! 

Love and Hatred, by . 

To an obscure town in shire there came to reside a 

young couple, whose appearance and habits drew towards 
them from the neighbouring gossips a more than ordinary 
attention. They bore the name of Welford. The man assumed 
the profession of a solicitor. He came without introduction 
or recommendation; his manner of life bespoke poverty; his 
address was reserved and even sour; and despite the notice 
and scrutiny with which he was regarded, he gained no clients 
and made no lawsuits. The want of all those decent charla- 
tanisms which men of every profession are almost necessitated 
to employ, and the sudden and unushered nature of his com- 
ing were, perhaps, the cause of this ill-success. “His house 
was too small,” people said, “for respectability.” And little 
good could be got from a solicitor the very rails round whose 
door were so sadly in want of repainting! Then, too, Mrs. 
Welford made a vast number of enemies. She was, beyond 
all expression, beautiful; and there was a certain coquetry in 
her manner which showed she was aware of her attractions. 

All the ladies of hated her. A few people called on the 

young cotiple. Welford received them coldly;- their invita- 
tions were unaccepted, and, what was worse, they were never 
returned. The devil himself could not have supported an 


392 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


attorney under such circumstances. Reserved, shabby, poor, 
rude, introductionless, a bad house, an unpainted railing, and 
a beautiful wife! Nevertheless, though Welford was not 
employed, he was, as we have said, watched. On their first 
arrival, which was in summer, the young pair were often seen 
walking together in the fields or groves which surrounded 
their home. Sometimes they walked affectionately together, 
and it was observed with what care Welford adjusted his 
wife’s cloak or shawl around her slender shape, as the cool of 
the evening increased. But often his arm was withdrawn; he 
lingered behind, and they continued their walk or returned 
homeward in silence and apart. By degrees whispers circulated 
throughout the town that the new-married couple lived by no 
means happily. The men laid the fault on the stern-looking 
husband; the women, on the minx of a wife. However, the 
solitary servant whom they kept declared that though Mr. 
Welford did sometimes frown, and Mrs. Welford did some- 
times weep, they were extremely attached to each other, and 
only quarrelled through love. The maid had had four lovers 
herself, and was possibly experienced in such matters. They 
received no visitors, near or from a distance; and the postman 
declared he had never seen a letter directed to either. Thus 
a kind of mystery hung over the pair, and made them still 
more gazed on and still more disliked — which is saying a 
great deal — than they would have otherwise been. Poor as 
Welford was, his air and walk eminently bespoke what com- 
mon persons term gentility. And in this he had greatly the 
advantage of his beautiful wife, who, though there was cer- 
tainly nothing vulgar or plebeian in her aspect, altogether 
wanted the refinement of manner, look, and phrase which 
characterized Welford. For about two years they lived in 
this manner, and so frugally and tranquilly that though Wel- 
ford had not any visible means of subsistence, no one could 
well wonder in what manner they did subsist. About the end 
of that time Welford suddenly embarked a small sum in a 
county speculation. In the course of this adventure, to the 
great surprise of his neighbours, he evinced an extraordinary 
turn for calculation, and his habits plainly bespoke a man 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


393 


both of business and ability. This disposal of capital brought 
a sufficient return to support the Welfords, if they had been 
so disposed, in rather a better style than heretofore. They 
remained, however, in much the same state; and the only dif- 
ference that the event produced was the retirement of Mr. Wel- 
ford from the profession he had embraced. He was no longer 
a solicitor ! It must be allowed that he resigned no great 
advantages in this retirement. About this time some officers 
were quartered at ; and one of them, a handsome lieu- 

tenant, was so struck with the charms of Mrs. Welford, whom 
he saw at church, that he lost no opportunity of testifying his 
admiration. It was maliciously yet net unfoundedly remarked 
that though no absolute impropriety could be detected in the 
manner of Mrs. Welford, she certainly seemed far from dis- 
pleased with the evident homage of the young lieutenant. A 
blush tinged her cheek when she saw him ; and the gallant 
coxcomb asserted that the blush was not always without a 
smile. Emboldened by the interpretations of his vanity, and 
contrasting, as every one else did, his own animated face and 
glittering garb with the ascetic and gloomy countenance, the 
unstudied dress, and austere gait which destroyed in Welford 
the effect of a really handsome person, our lieutenant thought 
fit to express his passion by a letter, which he conveyed to 
Mrs. Welford’s pew. Mrs. Welford went not to church that 
day; the letter was found by a good-natured neighbour, and 
inclosed anonymously to the husband. 

Whatever, in the secrecy of domestic intercourse, took place 
on this event was necessarily unknown ; but the next Sunday 
the face of Mr. Welford, which had never before appeared at 
church, was discerned by one vigilant neighbour, — probably 
the anonymous friend, — not in the same pew with his wife, 
but in a remote corner of the sacred house. And once, when 
the lieutenant was watching to read in Mrs. Welford’s face 
some answer to his epistle, the same obliging inspector de- 
clared that Welford’s countenance assumed a sardonic and 
withering sneer that made his very blood to creep. However 
this be, the lieutenant left his quarters, and Mrs. Welford’s 
reputation remained dissatisfactorily untarnished. Shortly 


394 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


after this the county speculation failed, and it was under- 
stood that the Welfords were about to leave the town, whither 
none knew, — some said to jail; but then, unhappily, no debts 
could be discovered. Their bills had been “next to nothing; ” 
but, at least, they had been regularly paid. However, before 
the rumoured emigration took place, a circumstance equally 

wonderful to the good people of occurred. One bright 

spring morning a party of pleasure from a great house in the 
vicinity passed through that town. Most conspicuous of these 
was a young horseman, richly dressed, and of a remarkably 
showy and handsome appearance. Not a little sensible of the 
sensation he created, this cavalier lingered behind his com- 
panions in order to eye more deliberately certain damsels 
stationed in a window, and who were quite ready to return 
his glances with interest. At this moment the horse, which 
was fretting itself fiercely against the rein that restrained it 
from its fellows, took a fright at a knife-grinder, started vio- 
lently to one side, and the graceful cavalier, who had been 
thinking, not of the attitude best adapted to preserve his 
equilibrium, but to display his figure, was thrown with some 
force upon a heap of bricks and rubbish which had long, to 
the scandal of the neighbourhood, stood before the paintless 
railings around Mr. Welford’s house. Welford himself came 
out at the time, and felt compelled — for he was by no means 
one whose sympathetic emotions flowed easily — to give a 
glance to the condition of a man who lay motionless before 
his very door. The horseman quickly recovered his senses, 
but found himself unable to rise; one of his legs was broken. 
Supported in the arms of his groom, he looked around, and 
his eye met Welford’s. An instant recognition gave life to 
the face of the former, and threw a dark blush over the sullen 
features of the latter. 

“ Heavens ! ” said the cavalier, “ is that — ” 

“Hist, my lord! ” cried Welford, quickly interrupting him, 
and glancing round. “But you are hurt, — will you enter my 
house?” 

The horseman signified his assent, and, between the groom 
and Welford, was borne within the shabby door of the ex- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


395 


solicitor. The groom was then despatched with an excuse to 
the party, many of whom were already hastening around the 
house ; and though one or two did force themselves across the 
inhospitable threshold, yet so soon as they had uttered a few 
expletives, and felt their stare sink beneath the sullen and 
chilling asperity of the host, they satisfied themselves that 
though it was d — d unlucky for their friend, yet they could 
do nothing for him at present; and promising to send to 
inquire after him the next day, they remounted and rode 
homeward, with an eye more attentive than usual to the 
motion of their steeds. They did not, however, depart till 
the surgeon of the town had made tis appearance, and de- 
clared that the patient must not on any account be moved. 
A lord’s leg was a windfall that did not happen every day to 

the surgeon of . All this while we may imagine the 

state of anxiety experienced in the town, and the agonized 
endurance of those rural nerves which are produced in scanty 
populations, and have so Taliacotiari a sympathy with the 
affairs of other people. One day, two days, three days, a 
week, a fortnight, nay, a month, passed, and the lord was 
still the inmate of Mr. Welford’s abode. Leaving the gossips 
to feed on their curiosity, — “cannibals of their own hearts,” 
— we must give a glance towards the interior of the inhos- 
pitable mansion of the ex-solicitor. 

It was towards evening, the sufferer was supported on a 
sofa, and the beautiful Mrs. Welford, who had officiated as 
his nurse, was placing the pillow under the shattered limb. 
He himself was attempting to seize her hand, which she 
coyly drew back, and uttering things sweeter and more 
polished than she had ever listened to before. At this 
moment Welford softly entered; he was unnoticed by either; 
and he stood at the door contemplating them with a smile of 
calm and self-hugging derision. The face of Mephistopheles 
regarding Margaret and Faust might suggest some idea of the 
picture we design to paint; but the countenance of Welford 
was more lofty, as well as comelier, in character, though not 
less malignant in expression, than that which the incompara- 
ble Retsch has given to the mocking fiend. So utter, so con- 


396 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


gratulatory, so lordly was the contempt on Welford’s dark 
and striking features, that though he was in that situation in 
which ridicule usually attaches itself to the husband, it was 
the gallant and the wife that would have appeared to the 
beholder in a humiliating and unenviable light. 

After a momentary pause Wei ford approached with a heavy 
step. The wife started; but with a bland and smooth expres- 
sion, which since his sojourn in the town of had been 

rarely visible in his aspect, the host joined the pair, smiled 
on the nurse, and congratulated the patient on his progress 
towards recovery. The nobleman, well learned in the usages 
of the world, replied easily and gayly; and the conversation 
flowed on cheerfully enough till the wife, who had sat ab- 
stracted and apart, stealing ever and anon timid glances 
towards her husband and looks of a softer meaning towards 
the patient, retired from the room. Wei ford then gave a 
turn to the conversation; he reminded the nobleman of the 
pleasant days they had passed' in Italy, — of the adventures 
they had shared, and the intrigues they had enjoyed. As the 
conversation warmed, it assumed a more free and licentious 

turn ; and not a little, we ween, would the good folks of 

have been amazed, could they have listened to the gay jests 
and the libertine maxims which flowed from the thin lips of 
that cold and severe Welford, whose countenance gave the lie 
to mirth. Of women in general they spoke with that lively 
contempt which is the customary tone with men of the world; 
only in Welford it assumed a bitterer, a deeper, and a more 
philosophical cast than it did in his more animated yet less 
energetic guest. 

The nobleman seemed charmed with his friend; the conver- 
sation was just to his taste; and when Welford had supported 
him up to bed, he shook that person cordially by the hand, 
and hoped he should soon see him in very different circum- 
stances. When the peer’s door was closed on Welford, he 
stood motionless for some moments ; he then with a soft step 
ascended to his own chamber. His wife slept soundly ; beside 
the bed was the infant’s cradle. As his eyes fell on the lat- 
ter, the rigid irony, now habitual to his features, relaxed; he 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


39T 


bent over the cradle long and in deep silence. The mother’s 
face, blended with the sire’s, was stamped on the sleeping and 
cherub countenance before him; and as at length, rousing 
from his revery, he kissed it gently, he murmured, — 

“When I look on you I will believe that she once loved me. 
Pah ! ” he said abruptly, and rising, “this fatherly sentiment 

for a ’s offering is exquisite in me ! ” So saying, without 

glancing towards his wife, who, disturbed by the loudness of 
his last words, stirred uneasily, he left the room, and de- 
scended into that where he had conversed with his guest. 
He shut the door with caution, and striding to and fro the 
humble apartment, gave vent to thoughts marshalled some- 
what in the broken array in which they now appear to the 
reader : — 

“Ay, ay, she has been my ruin! and if I were one of your 
weak fools who make a gospel of the silliest and most mawk- 
ish follies of this social state, she would now be my disgrace; 
but instead of my disgrace, I will make her my footstool to 
honour and wealth. And, then, to the devil with the foot- 
stool ! Yes ! two years I have borne what was enough to turn 
my whole blood into gall, — inactivity, hopelessness, a wasted 
heart and life in myself; contumely from the world; coldness, 
bickering, ingratitude from the one for whom (oh, ass that I 
was !) I gave up the most cherished part of my nature, — 
rather, my nature itself! Two years I have borne this, and 
now will I have my revenge. I will sell her, — sell her! 
God! I will sell her like the commonest beast of a market! 
And this paltry piece of false coin shall buy me — my world ! 
Other men’s vengeance comes from hatred, — a base, rash, 
unphilosophical sentiment! mine comes from scorn, — the 
only wise state for the reason to rest in. Other men’s ven- 
geance ruins themselves; mine shall save me! Ha! how my 
soul chuckles when I look at this pitiful pair, who think I see 
them not, and know that every movement they make is on a 
mesh of my web ! Yet,” and Welford paused slowly, — “yet 
I cannot but mock myself when I think of the arch gull that 
this boy’s madness, love, — love, indeed ! the very word turns 
me sick with loathing, — made of me. Had that woman, 


898 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


silly, weak, automatal as she is, really loved me; had she 
been sensible of the unspeakable sacrifice I had made to her 
(Antony’s was nothing to it, — he lost a real world only; 
mine was the world of imagination); had she but conde- 
scended to learn my nature, to subdue the woman’s devil at 
her own, — I could have lived on in this babbling hermitage 
forever, and fancied myself happy and resigned, — I could 
have become a different being. I fancy I could have become 
what your moralists (quacks !) call ‘ good.’ But this fretting 
frivolity of heart, this lust of fool’s praise, this peevishness 
of temper, this sullenness in answer to the moody thought, 
which in me she neither fathomed nor forgave, this vulgar, 
daily, hourly pining at the paltry pinches of the body’s pov- 
erty, the domestic whine, the household complaint, — when I 
— I have not a thought for such pitiful trials of affection; and 
all this while my curses, my buried hope and disguised spirit 
and sunken name not thought of ; the magnitude of my sur- 
render to her not even comprehended; nay, her ‘inconveni- 
ences ’ — a dim hearth, I suppose, or a daintiless table — 
compared, ay, absolutely compared, with all which I aban- 
doned for her sake ! As if it were not enough, — had I been 
a fool, an ambitionless, soulless fool, — the mere thought that 
I had linked my name to that of a tradesman, — I beg pardon, 
a retired tradesman ! — as if that knowledge — a knowledge I 
would strangle my whole race, every one who has ever met, 
seen me, rather than they should penetrate — were not 
enough, when she talks of ‘ comparing, ’ to make me gnaw 
the very flesh from my bones ! No, no, no ! Never was there 
so bright a turn in my fate as when this titled coxcomb; with 
his smooth voice and gaudy fripperies, came hither ! I will 
make her a tool to carve my escape from this cavern wherein 
she has plunged me. I will foment ‘ my lord’s ’ passion, till 
‘ my lord ’ thinks ‘ the passion ’ (a butterfly’s passion !) worth 
any price. I will then make my own terms, bind ‘ my lord ’ 
to secrecy, and get rid of my wife, my shame, and the obscur- 
ity of Mr. Welford forever. Bright, bright prospects ! let me 
shut my eyes to enjoy you! But softly! my noble friend 
calls himself a man of the world, skilled in human nature, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


399 


and a derider of its prejudices ; true enough, in his own little 
way — thanks not to enlarged views, but a vicious experience 
— so he is ! The book of the world is a vast miscellany ; he 
is perfectly well acquainted, doubtless, with those pages that 
treat of the fashions, — profoundly versed, I warrant, in the 
1 Magasin des Modes ’ tacked to the end of the index. But 
shall I, even with all the mastership which my mind must 
exercise over his, — shall I be able utterly to free myself in 
this ‘ peer of the world’s ’ mind from a degrading remem- 
brance? Cuckold ! cuckold ! ’t is an ugly word; a convenient, 
willing cuckold, humph ! — there is no grandeur, no philo- 
sophical varnish in the phrase. Let 'me see — yes ! I have a 
remedy for all that. I was married privately, — well ! under 
disguised names, — well ! It was a stolen marriage, far from 
her town, — well ! witnesses unknown to her, — well ! proofs 
easily secured to my possession, — excellent! The fool shall 
believe it a forged marriage, an ingenious gallantry of mine ; 
I will wash out the stain cuckold with the water of another 
word; I will make market of a mistress, not a wife. I will 
warn him not to acquaint her with this secret; let me con- 
sider for what reason, — oh ! my son’s legitimacy may be con- 
venient to me hereafter. He will understand that reason, and I 
will have his ‘honour ’ thereon. And by the way, I do care for 
that legitimacy, and will guard the proofs. I love my child, 

ambitious men do love their children. I may become a lord 

myself, and may wish for a lord to succeed me; and that son 
is mine, thank Heaven ! I am sure on that point, — the only 
child, too, that ever shall arise to me. Never, I swear, will 
I again put myself beyond my own power ! All my nature, 
save one passion, I have hitherto mastered ; that passion shall 
henceforth be my slave, my only thought be ambition, my 
only mistress be the world!” 

As thus terminated the revery of a man whom the social 
circumstances of the world were calculated, as if by system, 
to render eminently and basely wicked, Welford slowly 
ascended the stairs, and re-entered his chamber. His wife 
was still sleeping. Her beauty was of the fair and girlish 
and harmonized order, which lovers and poets would express 


400 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


by tlie word “ angelic ; ” and as Welford looked upon lier face, 
hushed and almost hallowed by slumber, a certain weakness 
and irresolution might have been discernible in the strong 
lines of his haughty features. At that moment, as if forever 
to destroy the return of hope or virtue to either, her lips 
moved, they uttered one word, — it was the name of Welford’s 
courtly guest. 

About three weeks from that evening Mrs. Welford eloped 
with the young nobleman, and on the morning following that 
event the distracted husband with his child disappeared for- 
ever from the town of . From that day no tidings what- 

soever respecting him ever reached the titillated ears of his 
anxious neighbours; and doubt, curiosity, discussion, grad- 
ually settled into the belief that his despair had hurried him 
into suicide. 

Although the unfortunate Mrs. Welford was in reality of a 
light and frivolous turn, and, above all, susceptible to per- 
sonal vanity, she was not without ardent affections and keen 
sensibilities. Her marriage had been one of love, — that is 
to say, on her part, the ordinary love of girls, who love not 
through actual and natural feeling so much as forced predis- 
position. Her choice had fallen on one superior to herself in 
birth, and far above all, in person and address, whom she had 
habitually met. Thus her vanity had assisted her affection, 
and something strange and eccentric in the temper and mind 
of Welford had, though at times it aroused her fear, greatly 
contributed to inflame her imagination. Then, too, though 
an uncourtly, he had been a passionate and a romantic lover. 
She was sensible that he gave up for her much that he had 
previously conceived necessary to his existence; and she 
stopped not to inquire how far this devotion was likely to 
last, or what conduct on her part might best perpetuate the 
feelings from which it sprang. She had eloped with him. 
She had consented to a private marriage. She had passed one 
happy month, and then delusion vanished ! Mrs. Welford 
was not a woman who could give to reality, or find in it, the 
charm equal to delusion. She was perfectly unable to com- 
prehend the intricate and dangerous character of her husband. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


401 


She had not the key to his virtues, nor the spell for his vices. 
Neither was the state to which poverty compelled them one 
well calculated for that tender meditation, heightened by 
absence and cherished in indolence, which so often supplies 
one who loves with the secret to the nature of the one beloved. 
Though not equal to her husband in birth or early prospects, 
Mrs. Welford had been accustomed to certain comforts, often 
more felt by those who belong to the inferior classes than by 
those appertaining to the more elevated, who in losing one 
luxury will often cheerfully surrender all. A fine lady can 
submit to more hardships than her woman; and every gentle- 
man who travels smiles at the privations which agonize his 
valet. Poverty and its grim comrades made way for a whole 
host of petty irritations and peevish complaints; and as no 
guest or visitor ever relieved the domestic discontent, or broke 
on the domestic bickering, they generally ended in that moody 
sullenness which so often finds love a grave in repentance. 
Nothing makes people tire of each other'like a familiarity that 
admits of carelessness in quarrelling and coarseness in com- 
plaining. The biting sneer of Welford gave acrimony to the 
murmur of his wife ; and when once each conceived the other 
the injurer, or him or herself the wronged, it was vain to hope 
that one would be more wary, or the other more indulgent. 
They both exacted too much, and the wife in especial con- 
ceded too little. Mrs. Welford was altogether and emphati- 
cally what a libertine calls “a woman,” — such as a frivolous 
education makes a woman , — generous in great things, petty 
in small; vain, irritable, full of the littleness of herself and 
her complaints, ready to plunge into an abyss with her lover, 
but equally ready to fret away all love with reproaches 
when the plunge had been made. Of all men, Welford 
could bear this the least. A woman of a larger heart, a> 
more settled experience, and an intellect capable of appre- 
ciating his character and sounding all his qualities, might 
have made him perhaps a useful and a great man, and, at 
least, her lover for life. Amidst a harvest of evil feelings 
the mere strength of his nature rendered him especially 
capable of intense feeling and generous emotion. One who 


402 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


relied on him was safe; one who rebelled against him trusted 
only to the caprice of his scorn. Still, however, for two 
years, love, though weakening with each hour, fought on in 
either breast, and could scarcely be said to be entirely van- 
quished in the wife , even when she eloped with her handsome 
seducer. A French writer has said pithily enough : “ Compare 
for a moment the apathy of a husband with the attention, the 
gallantry, the adoration of a lover, and can you ask the re- 
sult?” He was a French writer; but Mrs. Welford had in 
her temper much of the Frenchwoman. A suffering patient, 
young, handsome, well versed in the arts of intrigue, con- 
trasted with a gloomy husband whom she had never compre- 
hended, long feared, and had lately doubted if she disliked, 
— ah ! a much weaker contrast has made many a much better 
woman food for £he lawyers! Mrs. Welford eloped; but she 
felt a revived tenderness for her husband on the very morning 
that she did so. She carried away with her his letters of love 
as well as her own, which when they first married she had in 
an hour of fondness collected together, — then an inestimable 
hoard ! — and never did her new lover receive from her beau- 
tiful lips half so passionate a kiss as she left on the cheek of 
her infant. For some months she enjoyed with her paramour 
all for which she had sighed in her home. The one for whom 
she had forsaken her legitimate ties was a person so habitually 
cheerful, courteous, and what is ordinarily termed “good- 
natured ” (though he had in him as much of the essence of 
selfishness as any nobleman can decently have), that he con- 
tinued gallant to her without an effort long after he had begun 
to think it possible to tire even of so lovely a face. Yet there 
were moments when the fickle wife recalled her husband witt 
regret, and contrasting him with her seducer, did not find all 
the colourings of the contrast flattering to the latter. There 
is something in a powerful and marked character which women 
and all weak natures feel themselves constrained to respect; 
and Welford’s character thus stood in bold and therefore ad- 
vantageous though gloomy relief when opposed to the levities 
and foibles of this guilty woman’s present adorer. However 
this be, the die was cast; and it would have been policy for 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


403 


the lady to have made the best of her present game. But she 
who had murmured as a wife was not complaisant as a mis- 
tress. Reproaches made an interlude to caresses, which the 
noble lover by no means admired. He was not a man to 
retort, he was too indolent; but neither was he one to for- 
bear. “My charming friend,” said he one day, after a scene, 
“ you weary of me, — nothing more natural ! Why torment 
each other? You say I have ruined you; my sweet friend, let 
me make you reparation. Become independent; I will settle 
an annuity upon you; fly me, — seek hapjpiness elsewhere, and 
leave your unfortunate, your despairing lover to his fate.” 

“Do you taunt me, my lord?” cried the angry fair; “or do 
you believe that money can replace the rights of which you 
have robbed me? Can you make me again a wife, — a happy, 
a respected wife? Do this, my lord, and you atone to me!” 

The nobleman smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. The 
lady yet more angrily repeated her question. The lover 
answered by an innuendo, which at once astonished and 
doubly enraged her. She eagerly demanded explanation; 
and his lordship, who had gone further than he intended, 
left the room. But his words had sunk deep into the breast 
of this unhappy woman, and she resolved to procure an eluci- 
dation. Agreeably to the policy which stripped the fabled 
traveller of his cloak, she laid aside the storm and preferred 
the sunshine: she watched a moment of tenderness, turned 
the opportunity to advantage, and by little and little she 
possessed herself of a secret which sickened her with shame, 
disgust, and dismay. Sold ! bartered ! the object of a con- 
temptuous huxtering to the purchaser and the seller; sold, 
too, with a lie that debased her at once into an object for 
whom even pity was mixed with scorn ! Robbed already of 
the name and honour of a wife, and transferred as a harlot 
from the wearied arms of one leman to the capricious caresses 
of another! Such was the image that rose before her; and 
while it roused at one moment all her fiercer passions into 
madness, humbled, with the next, her vanity into the dust. 
She, who knew the ruling passion of Welford, saw at a glance 
the object of scorn and derision which she had become to 


404 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


him. While she imagined herself the betrayer, she had been 
betrayed; she saw vividly before her (and shuddered as she 
saw) her husband’s icy smile, his serpent eye, his features 
steeped in sarcasm, and all his mocking soul stamped upon 
the countenance, whose lightest derision was so galling. She 
turned from this picture, and saw the courtly face of the pur- 
chaser, — his subdued smile at her reproaches, — his latent 
sneer at her claims to a station which he had been taught by 
the arch plotter to believe she had never possessed. She saw 
his early weariness of her attractions, expressed with respect 
indeed, — an insulting respect, — but felt without a scruple 
of remorse. She saw in. either — as around — onty a recipro- 
cation of contempt. She was in a web of profound abasement. 
Even that haughty grief of conscience for crime committed to 
another, which if it stings humbles not, was swallowed up in 
a far more agonizing sensation, to one so vain as the adul- 
teress, — the burning sense of shame at having herself, while 
sinning, been the duped and deceived. Her very soul was 
appalled with her humiliation. The curse of Welford’s ven- 
geance was on her, and it was wreaked to the last ! What- 
ever kindly sentiment she might have experienced towards 
her protector, was swallowed up at once by this discovery. 
She could not endure the thought of meeting the eye of one 
who had been the gainer by this ignominious barter; the 
foibles and weaknesses of the lover assumed a despicable as 
well as hateful dye. And in feeling herself degraded, she 
loathed him. The day after she had made the discovery we 
have referred to, Mrs. Welford left the house of her protector, 
none knew whither. Eor two years from that date, all trace 
of her history was lost. At the end of that time what was 
Welford? A man rapidly rising in the world, distinguished 
at the Bar, where his first brief had lifted him into notice, 
commencing a flattering career in the senate, holding lucra- 
tive and honourable offices, esteemed for the austere rectitude 
of his moral character, gathering the golden opinions of all 
men, as he strode onward to public reputation. He had 
re-assumed his hereditary name; his early history was un- 
known; and no one in the obscure and distant town of had 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


405 


ever guessed that the humble Welford was the William Bran- 
don whose praise was echoed in so many journals, and whose 
rising genius was acknowledged by all. That asperity, rough- 
ness, and gloom which had noted him at and which, 

being natural to him, he deigned not to disguise in a station 
ungenial to his talents and below his hopes, were now glitter- 
ingly varnished over by an hypocrisy well calculated to aid 
his ambition. So learnedly could this singular man fit him- 
self to others that few among the great met him as a compan- 
ion, nor left him without the temper to become his friend. 
Through his noble rival — that is (to make our reader’s 
“surety doubly sure”), through Lord Mauleverer — he had 
acquired his first lucrative office, a certain patronage from 
government, and his seat in parliament. If he had perse- 
vered at the Bar rather than given himself entirely to State 
intrigues, it was only because his talents were eminently 
more calculated to advance him in the former path to honour 
than in the latter. So devoted was he become to public life 
that he had only permitted himself to cherish one private 
source of enjoyment, — his son. As no one, not even his 
brother, knew he had been married (during the two years of 
his disguised name, he had been supposed abroad), the appear- 
ance of this son made the only piece of scandal whispered 
against the rigid morality of his fair fame; but he himself, 
waiting his own time for avowing a legitimate heir, gave out 
that it was the orphan child of a dear friend whom he had 
known abroad; and the puritan demureness not only of life, 
but manner, which he assumed, gained a pretty large belief 
to the statement. This son Brandon idolized. As we have 
represented himself to say, ambitious men are commonly fond 
of their children, beyond the fondness of other sires. The 
perpetual reference which the ambitious make to posterity is 
perhaps the main reason. But Brandon was also fond of 
children generally; philoprogenitiveness was a marked trait 
in his character, and would seem to belie the hardness and 
artifice belonging to that character, were not the same love 
so frequently noticeable in the harsh and the artificial. It 
seems as if a half-conscious but pleasing feeling that they 


406 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


too were once gentle and innocent, makes them delight in 
reviving any sympathy with their early state. 

Often after the applause and labour of the day, Brandon 
would repair to his son’s chamber and watch his slumber for 
hours; often before his morning toil commenced, he would 
nurse the infant in his arms with all a woman’s natural tender- 
ness and gushing joy; and often, as a graver and more charac- 
teristic sentiment stole over him, he would mentally say, “ You 
shall build up our broken name on a better foundation than 
your sire. I begin too late in life, and I labour up a painful 
and stony road; but I shall make the journey to Fame smooth 
and accessible for you. Never, too, while you aspire to hon- 
our, shall you steel your heart to tranquillity. For you, my 
child, shall be the joys of home and love, and a mind that 
does not sicken at the past, and strain, through mere forget- 
fulness, towards a solitary and barren distinction for the 
future. Not only what your father gains you shall enjoy, 
but what has cursed him his vigilance shall lead you to 
shun ! ” 

It was thus not only that his softer feelings, but all the 
better and nobler ones, which even in the worst and hardest 
bosom find some root, turned towards his child, and that the 
hollow and vicious man promised to become the affectionate 
and perhaps the wise parent. 

One night Brandon was returning home on foot from a 
ministerial dinner. The night was frosty and clear, the hour 
was late, and his way lay through the longest and best-lighted 
streets of the metropolis. He was, as usual, buried in thought, 
when he was suddenly aroused from his revery by a light touch 
laid on his arm. He turned, and saw one of the unhappy per- 
sons who haunt the midnight streets of cities, standing right 
before his path. The gaze of each fell upon the other; and 
it was thus, for the first time since they laid their heads on 
the same pillow, that the husband met the wife. The skies 
were intensely clear, and the lamplight was bright and calm 
upon the faces of both. There was no doubt in the mind of 
either. Suddenly, and with a startled and ghastly conscious- 
ness, they recognized each other. The wife staggered, and 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


407 


clung to a post for support; Brandon's look was calm and 
unmoved. The hour that his bitter and malignant spirit had 
yearned for was come ; his nerves expanded in a voluptuous 
calmness, as if to give him a deliberate enjoyment of his hope 
fulfilled. Whatever the words that in that unwitnessed and 
almost awful interview passed between them, we may be sure 
that Brandon spared not one atom of his power. The lost 
and abandoned wife returned home; and all her nature, em- 
bruted as it had become by guilt and/ vile habits, hardened 
into revenge, — that preternatural feeling which may be 
termed the hope of despair. 

Three nights from that meeting Brandon’s house was broken 
into. Like the houses of many legal men, it lay in a danger- 
ous and thinly populated outskirt of the town, and was easily 
accessible to robbery. He was awakened by a noise; he 
started, and found himself in the grasp of two men. At the 
foot of the bed stood a female, raising a light; and her face, 
haggard with searing passions, and ghastly with the leprous 
whiteness of disease and approaching death, glared full upon 
him. 

“It is now my turn,” said the female, with a grin of scorn 
which Brandon himself might have envied; “you have cursed 
me, and I return the curse ! You have told me that my child 
shall never name me but to blush. Fool ! I triumph over 
you; you he shall never know to his dying day! You have 
told me that to my child and my child’s child (a long trans- 
mission of execration) my name — the name of the wife you 
basely sold to ruin and to hell — should be left as a legacy of 
odium and shame ! Man, you shall teach that child no further 
lesson whatever : you shall know not whether he live or die, 
or have children to carry on your boasted race ; or whether, 
if he have, those children be not outcasts of the earth, the 
accursed of man and God, the fit offspring of the thing you 
have made me. Wretch ! I hurl back on you the denuncia- 
tion with which, when we met three nights since, you would 
have crushed the victim of your own perfidy. You shall 
tread the path of your ambition childless and objectless and 
hopeless. Disease shall set her stamp upon your frame. The 


408 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


worm shall batten upon your heart. You shall have honours 
and enjoy them not; you shall gain your ambition, and de- 
spair; you shall pine for your son, and find him not; or, if 
you find him, you shall curse the hour in which he was born. 
Mark me, man, — I am dying while I speak, — I know that I 
am a prophet in my curse. From this hour I am avenged, 
and you are my scorn ! ” 

As the hardest natures sink appalled before the stony eye 
of the maniac, so, in the dead of the night, pinioned by 
ruffians, the wild and solemn voice, sharpened by passion 
and partial madness, of the ghastly figure before him curdling 
through his veins, even the haughty and daring character of 
William Brandon quailed! He uttered not a word. He 
was found the next morning bound by strong cords to his bed. 
He spoke not when he was released, but went in silence to his 
child’s chamber, — the child was gone! Several articles of 
property were also stolen; the desperate tools the mother had 
employed worked not perhaps without their own reward. 

We need scarcely add that Brandon set every engine and 
channel of justice in motion for the discovery of his son. All 
the especial shrewdness and keenness of his own character, 
aided by his professional experience, he employed for years 
in the same pursuit. Every research was wholly in vain; not 
the remotest vestige towards discovery could be traced until 
were found (we have recorded when) some of the articles that 
had been stolen. Fate treasured in her gloomy womb, alto- 
gether undescried by man, the hour and the scene in which 
the most ardent wish of Wii-nam Brandon was to be realized. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


409 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

O Fortuna, viris invida fortibus 
Quam non aequa bonis praemia dividis. 

J Seneca. 

And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 

Pants to the place from whence at first he flew. 

Here, to the houseless child of want, 

My door is open still. 

Goldsmith. 

Slowly for Lucy waned the weeks of a winter which to her 
was the most dreary portion of life she had ever passed. It 
became the time for the judge to attend one of those periodical 
visitations so fraught with dread and dismay to the miserable 
inmates of the dark abodes which the complex laws of this 
country so bounteously supply, — those times of great hilarity 
and eating to the legal gentry, — 

“ Who feed on crimes and fatten on distress, 

And wring vile mirth from suffering’s last excess.” 

Ah ! excellent order of the world, which it is so wicked to 
disturb! How miraculously beautiful must be that system 
which makes wine out of the scorching tears of guilt; and 
from the suffocating suspense, the agonized fear, the com- 
pelled and self-mocking bravery, the awful sentence, the 
despairing death-pang of one man, furnishes the smirking 
expectation of fees, the jovial meeting, and the mercenary 
holiday to another ! “ Of Law, nothing less can be said than 

that her seat is the bosom of God .” 1 To be ’sure not; Richard 
Hooker, you are perfectly right. The divinity of a sessions 
and the inspiration of the Old Bailey are undeniable ! 

1 Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity. 


410 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


The care of Sir William Brandon had effectually kept from 
Lucy’s ear the knowledge of her lover’s ignominious situa- 
tion. Indeed, in her delicate health even the hard eye of 
Brandon and the thoughtless glance of Mauleverer perceived 
the danger of such a discovery. The earl, now waiting the 
main attack on Lucy till the curtain had forever dropped on 
Clifford, proceeded with great caution and delicacy in his suit 
to his purposed bride. He waited with the more patience 
inasmuch as he had drawn in advance on his friend Sir 
William for some portion of the heiress’s fortune; and he 
readily allowed that he could not in the mean while have a 
better advocate than he found in Brandon. So persuasive, 
indeed, and so subtle was the eloquence of this able sophist, 
that often in his artful conversations with his niece he left 
even on the unvitiated and strong though simple mind of Lucy 
an uneasy and restless impression, which time might have 
ripened into an inclination towards the worldly advantages 
of the marriage at her command. Brandon was no bungling 
mediator or violent persecutor. He seemed to acquiesce in 
her rejection of Mauleverer. He scarcely recurred to the 
event. He rarely praised the earl himself, save for the obvi- 
ous qualities of liveliness and good-nature. But he spoke, 
with all the vivid colours he could infuse at will into his 
words, of the pleasures and the duties of rank and wealth. 
Well could he appeal alike to all the prejudices and all the 
foibles of the human breast, and govern virtue through its 
weaknesses. Lucy had been brought up, like the daughters 
of most country gentlemen of ancient family, in an undue and 
idle consciousness of superior birth; and she was far from 
inaccessible to the warmth and even feeling (for hcvo Brandon 
was sincere) with which her uncle spoke of the duty of rais- 
ing a gallant name sunk into disrepute, and sacrificing our 
own inclination for the redecorating the mouldered splendour 
of those who have gone before us. If the confusion of idea 
occasioned by a vague pomposity of phrase, or the infant 
inculcation of a sentiment that is mistaken for a virtue, so 
often makes fools of the wise on the subject of ancestry; if it 
clouded even the sarcastic and keen sense of Brand.on himself, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


411 


we may forgive its influence over a girl so little versed in the 
arts of sound reasoning as poor Lucy, who, it may be said, 
had never learned to think until she had learned to love. 
However, the impression made by Brandon, in his happiest 
moments of persuasion, was as yet only transient; it van- 
ished before the first thought of Clifford, and never suggested 
to her even a doubt as to the suit of Mauleverer. 

When the day arrived for Sir William Brandon to set out 
on the circuit, he called Barlow, and enjoined on that acute and 
intelligent servant the strictest caution with respect to Lucy. 
He bade him deny her to ever } 7 one, of whatever rank, and 
carefully to look into every newspaper that was brought to 
her, as well as to withhold every letter, save such as were 
addressed to her in the judge’s own handwriting. Lucy’s 
maid Brandon had already won over to silence ; and the uncle 
now pleased himself with thinking that he had put an effectual 
guard to every chance of discovery. The identity of Lovett 
with Clifford had not yet even been rumoured; and Mauleverer 
had rightly judged of Clifford, when he believed the prisoner 
would himself take every precaution against the detection of 
that fact. Clifford answered the earl’s note, and promised, in 
a letter couched in so affecting yet so manly a tone of grati- 
tude that even Brandon was touched when he read it. And 
since his confinement and partial recovery of health, the pris- 
oner had kept himself closely secluded, and refused all visi- 
tors. Encouraged by this reflection, and the belief in the 
safety of his precautions, Brandon took leave of Lucy. “Fare- 
well ! ” said he, as he embraced her affectionately. “Be sure 
that you write to me, and forgive me if I do not answer you 
punctually. Take care of yourself, my sweet niece, and let 
me see a fresher colour on that soft cheek when I return ! ” 

“Take care of yourself rather, my dear, dear uncle,” said 
Lucy, clinging to him and weeping, as of late her weakened 
nerves caused her to do at the least agitation. “ Why may I 
not go with you? You have seemed to me paler than usual 
the last three or four days, and you complained yesterday. Do 
let me go with you. I will be no trouble, none at all ; but I 
am sure you require a nurse.” 


412 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


" You want to frighten me, my pretty Lucy,” said Brandon, 
shaking his head with a smile. “I am well, very well. I 
felt a strange rush of blood towards the head yesterday, it is 
true; but I feel to-day stronger and lighter than I have done 
for years. Once more, God bless you, my child ! ” 

And Brandon tore himself away, and commenced his 
journey. 

The wandering and dramatic course of our story now con- 
ducts us to an obscure lane in the metropolis, leading to the 
Thames, and makes us spectators of an affecting farewell be- 
tween two persons, whom the injustice of fate and the perse- 
cutions of men were about perhaps forever to divide. 

“Adieu, my friend! ” said Augustus Tomlinson, as he stood 
looking full on that segment of the face of Edward Pepper 
which was left unconcealed by a huge hat and a red belcher 
handkerchief. Tomlinson himself was attired in the full cos- 
tume of a dignified clergyman. 44 Adieu, my friend, since you 
will remain in England, — adieu ! I am, I exult to say, no 
less sincere a patriot than you. Heaven be my witness, how 
long I looked repugnantly on poor Lovett’s proposal to quit 
my beloved country. But all hope of life here is now over; 
and really, during the last ten days I have been so hunted from 
corner to corner, so plagued with polite invitations, similar 
to those given by a farmer’s wife to her ducks, 4 Hilly, dilly, 
dilly, come and be killed ! ’ that my patriotism has been pro- 
digiously cooled, and I no longer recoil from thoughts of self- 
banishment. 4 The earth,’ my dear Ned, as a Greek sage has 
very well observed, — 4 the earth is the same everywhere ! ’ 
and if I am asked for my home, I can point, like Anaxagoras, 
to heaven ! ” 

44 ’Pon my soul, you affect me!” said Ned, speaking 
thick, either from grief or the pressure of the belcher hand- 
kerchief on his mouth; “it is quite beautiful to hear you 
talk!” 

44 Bear up, my dear friend,” continued Tomlinson; 44 bear 
up against your present afflictions. What, to a man who for- 
tifies himself by reason and by reflection on the shortness of 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


413 


life, are the little calamities of the body? What is imprison- 
ment or persecution or cold or hunger? By the by, you did 
not forget to put the sandwiches into my coat-pocket ! ” 

“Hush!” whispered Ned, and he moved on involuntarily; 
“I see a man at the other end of the street.” 

“Let us quicken our pace,” said Tomlinson; and the pair 
proceeded towards the river. 

“And now,” began Ned, who thought he might as well say 
something about himself; for hitherto Augustus, in the ardour 
of his friendship, had been only discussing his own plans, — 
“and now, — that is to say, when I leave you, — I shall hasten 
to dive for shelter, until the storm blows over. I don’t much 
like living in a cellar and wearing a smock frock; but those 
concealments have something interesting in them, after all ! 
The safest and snuggest place I know of is the Pays Bas, 
about Thames Court; so I think of hiring an apartment under- 
ground, and taking my meals at poor Lovett’s old quarters, 
the Mug, — the police will never dream of looking in these 
vulgar haunts for a man of my fashion.” 

“You cannot then tear yourself from England?” said 
Tomlinson. 

“No, hang it! the fellows are so cursed unmanly on the 
other side of the water. I hate their wine and their parley 
woo. Besides, there is no fun there.” 

Tomlinson, who was absorbed in his own thoughts, made no 
comment on his friend’s excellent reasons against travel; and 
the pair now approached the brink of the river. A boat was 
in waiting to receive and conduct to the vessel in which he 
had taken his place for Calais the illustrious emigrant. But 
as Tomlinson’s eye fell suddenly on the rude boatmen and the 
little boat which were to bear him away from his native land; 
as he glanced, too, across the blue waters, which a brisk wind 
wildly agitated, and thought how much rougher it would be 
at sea, where “ his soul ” invariably “ sickened at the heaving 
wave,” — a whole tide of deep and sorrowful emotions rushed 
upon him. 

He turned away. The spot on which he stood was a 
piece of ground to be let (as a board proclaimed) upon a 


414 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


building lease; below, descended the steps which were to 
conduct him to the boat; around, the desolate space allowed 
him to see in far and broad extent the spires and domes 
and chimneys of the great city whose inhabitants he might 
never plunder more. As he looked and looked, the tears 
started to his eyes, and with a gust of enthusiasm, little 
consonant with his temperate and philosophical character, he 
lifted his right hand from his black breeches-pocket, and 
burst into the following farewell to the metropolis of his 
native shores: — 

“Farewell, my beloved London, farewell! Where shall I 
ever find a city like you? Never, till now, did I feel how 
inexpressibly dear you were to me. You have been my father 
and my brother and my mistress and my tailor and my shoe- 
maker and my hatter and my cook and my wine-merchant! 
You and I never misunderstood each other. I did not grum- 
ble when I saw what fine houses and good strong boxes you 
gave to other men. No! I rejoiced at their prosperity. I 
delighted to see a rich man, — my only disappointment was in 
stumbling on a poor one. You gave riches to my neighbours; 
but, 0 generous London, you gave those neighbours to me ! 
Magnificent streets, all Christian virtues abide within you ! 
Charity is as common as smoke ! Where, in what corner of 
the habitable world, shall I find human beings with so many 
superfluities? Where shall I so easily decoy, from benevo- 
lent credulity, those superfluities to myself? Heaven only 
knows, my dear, dear, darling London, what I lose in you! 
0 public charities ! 0 public institutions ! 0 banks that belie 

mathematical axioms and make lots out of nothing ! 0 an- 

cient constitution always to be questioned ! O modern im- 
provements that never answer ! 0 speculations ! 0 com- 
panies ! 0 usury laws which guard against usurers, by 

making as many as possible ! 0 churches in which no one 

profits, save the parson, and the old women that let pews of an 
evening! 0 superb theatres, too small for parks, too enor- 
mous for houses, which exclude comedy and comfort, and 
have a monopoly for performing nonsense gigantically ! 0 

houses of plaster, built in a day ! 0 palaces four yards high, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


415 


with a dome in the middle, meant to be invisible ! 1 0 shops 

worth thousands, and 0 shopkeepers not worth a shilling ! 0 

system of credit by which beggars are princes, and princes are 
beggars ! 0 imprisonment for debt, which lets the mare be 

stolen, and then locks up the bridle ! 0 sharpers, bubbles, 

senators, beaux, taverns, brothels, clubs, houses private and 
public ! — 0 London, in a word, receive my last adieu ! Long 
may you flourish in peace and plenteousness ! May your 
knaves be witty, and your fools be rich*! May you alter only 
two things, — your damnable tricks of transportation and 
hanging ! Those are your sole faults ; but for those I would 
never desert you. Adieu ! ” 

Here Tomlinson averted his head, and then hastily shaking 
the hand of Long Ned with a tremulous and warm grasp, he 
hurried down the stairs and entered the boat. Ned remained 
motionless for some moments, following him with his eyes as 
he sat at the end of the boat, waving a white pocket-handker- 
chief. At length a line of barges snatched him from the sight 
of the lingerer; and Ned, slowly turning away, muttered, — 

“Yes, I have always heard that Dame Lobkins’s was the 
safest asylum for misfortune like mine. I will go forthwith 
in search of a lodging, and to-morrow I will make my break- 
fast at the Mug ! ” 

Be it our pleasing task, dear reader, to forestall the good 
robber, and return, at the hour of sunrise on the day follow- 
ing Tomlinson’s departure, to the scene at which our story 
commenced. We are now once more at the house of Mrs. 
Margery Lobkins. 

The room which served so many purposes was still the same 
as when Paul turned it into the arena of his mischievous 
pranks. The dresser, with its shelves of mingled delf and 
pewter, occupied its ancient and important station. Only it 

1 We must not suppose this apostrophe to be an anachronism. Tomlinson, 
of course, refers to some palace of his day ; one of the boxes — Christmas 
boxes — given to the king by his economical nation of shopkeepers. We sup- 
pose it is either pulled down or blown down long ago ; it is doubtless for- 
gotten by this time, except by antiquaries. Nothing is so ephemeral as great 
houses built by the people. Your kings play the deuce with their playthings! 


416 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


might be noticed that the pewter was more dull than of yore, 
and that sundry cracks made their erratic wanderings over 
the yellow surface of the delf. The eye of the mistress had 
become less keen than heretofore, and the care of the hand- 
maid had, of necessity, relaxed. The tall clock still ticked 
in monotonous warning; the blanket-screen, haply innocent 
of soap since we last described it, many-storied and poly- 
balladed, still unfolded its ample leaves “ rich with the spoils 
of time ; ” the spit and the musket yet hung from the wall in 
amicable proximation. And the long, smooth form, “with 
many a holy text thereon bestrewn ,” still afforded rest to the 
weary traveller, and an object to the vacant stare of Mrs. 
Margery Lobkins, as she lolled in her opposite seat and forgot 
the world. But poor Piggy Lob ! — there was the alteration ! 
The soul of the woman was gone; the spirit had evaporated 
from the human bottle ! She sat, with open mouth and glassy 
eye, in her chair, sidling herself to and fro, with the low, 
peevish sound of fretful age and bodily pain; sometimes this 
querulous murmur sharpened into a shrill but unmeaning 
scold : “ There now, you gallows-bird ! you has taken the 
swipes without chalking; you wants to cheat the poor widow; 
but I sees you, I does ! Providence protects the aged and the 
innocent — Oh, oh! these twinges will be the death o’ me. 
Where ’s Martha? You jade, you ! you wiperous hussy, bring 
the tape; doesn’t you see how I suffers? Has you no bowels, 
to let a poor Christian cretur perish for want o’ help ! That ’s 
with ’em, that ’s the way ! Ho one cares for I now, — no one 
has respect for the gray ’airs of the old ! ” And then the voice 
dwindled into the whimpering “tenor of its way.” 

Martha, a strapping wench with red hair streaming over her 
“hills of snow,” was not, however, inattentive to the wants of 
her mistress. “Who knows,” said she to a man who sat by 
the hearth, drinking tea out of a blue mug, and toasting with 
great care two or three huge rounds of bread for his own private 
and especial nutriment, — “who knows,” said she, “what we 
may come to ourselves?” And, so saying, she placed a glow- 
ing tumbler by her mistress’s elbow. 

But in the sunken prostration of her intellect, the old 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


417 


woman was insensible even to her consolation. She sipped 
and drank, it is true; but as if the stream warmed not the 
benumbed region through which it passed, she continued mut- 
tering in a crazed and groaning key, — 

“ Is this your gratitude, you sarpent ! Why does not you 
bring the tape, I tells you? Am I of a age to drink water 
like a ’oss, you nasty thing ! Oh, to think as ever I should 
live to be desarted ! ” t 

Inattentive to these murmurs, which she felt unreasonable, 
the bouncing Martha now quitted the room to repair to her 
“upper household ” avocations. The man at the hearth was 
the only companion left to the widow. Gazing at her for a 
moment, as she sat whining, with a rude compassion in his 
eye, and slowly munching -his toast, which he had now but- 
tered and placed in a delf plate on the hob, this person thus 
soothingly began : — 

“ Ah, Dame Lobkins, if so be as ’ow little Paul vas a vith 
you, it would be a gallows comfort to you in your latter 
hend ! ” 

The name of Paul made the good woman incline her head 
towards the speaker; a ray of consciousness shot through her 
bedulled brain. 

“Little Paul, —eh, sirs! where is Paul? Paul, I say, my 
ben cull. Alack ! he ’s gone, — left his poor old nurse to die 
like a cat in a cellar. Oh, Dummie, never live to be old, man ! 
They leaves us to oursel’s, and then takes away all the lush 
with ’em ! I has not a drop o’ comfort in the ’varsal world ! 55 

Dummie, who at this moment had his own reasons for 
soothing the dame, and was anxious to make the most of the 
opportunity of a conversation as unwitnessed as the present, 
replied tenderly, and with a cunning likely to promote his 
end, reproached Paul bitterly for never having informed the 
dame of his whereabout and his proceedings. “But come, 
dame,”' he wound up, “come, I guess as how he is better nor 
all that, and that you need not beat your hold brains to think 
where he lies, or' vot he ’s a doing. Blow me tight, Mother 
Lob, — I ax pardon, Mrs. Margery, I should say, — if I vould 
not give five bob, ay, and five to the tail o’ that, to know what 

27 


418 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


the poor lad is about; I takes a mortal hinterest in that ’ere 
chap ! ” 

“ Oh ! oh ! ” groaned the old woman, on whose palsied sense 
the astute inquiries of Dummie Dunnaker fell harmless; “my 
poor sinful carcass ! what a waj^ it be in ! ” 

Artfully again did Dummie Dunnaker, nothing defeated, 
renew his attack; but fortune does not always favour the wise, 
and it failed Dummie now, for a twofold reason, — first, be- 
cause it was not possible for the dame to comprehend him; 
secondly, because even if it had been, she had nothing to 
reveal. Some of Clifford’s pecuniary gifts had been conveyed 
anonymously, all without direction or date; and for the most 
part they had been appropriated by the sage Martha, into 
whose hands they fell, to her own private uses. Nor did the 
dame require Clifford’s grateful charity; for she was a woman 
tolerably well off in this world, considering how near she was 
waxing to another. Longer, however, might Dummie have 
tried his unavailing way, had not the door of the inn creaked 
on its hinges, and the bulky form of a tall man in a smock- 
frock, but with a remarkably fine head of hair, darkened the 
threshold. He honoured the dame, who cast on him a lack- 
lustre eye, with a sulky yet ambrosial nod, seized a bottle of 
spirits and a tumbler, lighted a candle, drew a small German 
pipe and a tobacco-box from his pouch, placed these several 
luxuries on a small table, wheeled it to a far corner of the 
room, and throwing himself into one chair, and his legs into an- 
other, he enjoyed the result of his pains in a moody and super- 
cilious silence. Long and earnestly did the meek Dummie 
gaze on the face of the gentleman before him. It had been 
some years since he had last beheld it; but it was one which 
did not easily escape the memory ; and although its proprie- 
tor was a man who had risen in the world, and had gained 
the height of his profession (a station far beyond the diurnal 
sphere of Dummie Dunnaker), and the humble purloiner was 
therefore astonished to encounter him in these lower regions, 
yet Dummie’s recollection carried him back to a day when 
they had gone shares together without respect of persons, and 
been right jolly partners in the practical game of beggar my 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


419 


neighbour. While, however, Dummie Dunnaker, who was a 
little inclined to be shy, deliberated as to the propriety of 
claiming acquaintanceship, a dirty boy, with a face which 
betokened the frost, as Dummie himself said, like a plum 
dying of the scarlet fever, entered the room, with a news- 
paper in his dexter paw. 

“ Great news ! great news ! ” cried the urchin, imitating 
his vociferous originals in the street; a all about the famous 
Captain Lovett, as large as life ! ” 

“’ Old your blarney, you blattergowl! ” said Dummie, re- 
bukingly, and seizing the journal. 

“ Master says as how he must have it to send to Clapham, 
and can’t spare it for more than a ’our ! ” said the boy, as he 
withdrew. 

“7 ’members the day,” said Dummie, with the zeal of a 
clansman, “when the Mug took a paper all to itsel’ instead o’ 
’iring it by the job like ! ” 

Thereon he opened the paper with a fillip, and gave himself 
up to the lecture. But the tall stranger, half rising with a 
start, exclaimed, — 

“Can’t you have the manners to be communicative? Do 
you think nobody cares about Captain Lovett but yourself?” 

On this, Dummie turned round on his chair, and, w T ith a 
“Blow me tight, you ’re velcome, I ’m sure,” began as follows 
(we copy the paper, not the diction of the reader) : — 

u The trial of the notorious Lovett commences this day. Great ex- 
ertions have been made by people of all classes to procure seats in the 
Town Hall, which will be full to a degree never before known in this 
peaceful province. No less than seven indictments are said to await the 
prisoner; it has been agreed that the robbery of Lord Mauleverer should 
be the first to come on. The principal witness in this case against the 
prisoner is understood to be the king’s evidence, MacGrawler. No 
news as yet have been circulated concerning the suspected accomplices, 
Augustus Tomlinson and Edward Pepper. It is believed that the former 
has left the country, and that the latter is lurking among the low refuges 
of guilt with which the heart of the metropolis abounds. Report speaks 
highly of the person and manners of Lovett. He is also supposed to be 
a man of some talent, and was formerly engaged in an obscure periodical 


420 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


edited by MacGrawler, and termed the 1 Altenseum,’ or 1 Asinaeum.’ 
Nevertheless, we apprehend that his origin is remarkably low, and 
suitable to the nature of his pursuits. The prisoner will be most for- 
tunate in a judge. Never did any one holding the same high office as 
Sir William Brandon earn an equal reputation in so short a time. The 
Whigs are accustomed to sneer at us, when we insist on the private 
virtues of our public men. Let them look to Sir William Brandon, and 
confess that the austerest morals may be linked with the soundest knowl- 
edge and the most brilliant genius. The opening address of the learned 

judge to the jury at is perhaps the most impressive and solemn 

piece of eloquence in the English language ! ” 

A cause for this eulogium might haply be found in another 
part of the paper, in which it was said, — 

“ Among the higher circles, we understand, the rumour has gone 
forth that Sir William Brandon is to be recalled to his old parliamentary 
career in a more elevated scene. So highly are this gentleman’s talents 
respected by his Majesty and the ministers, that they are, it is reported, 
anxious to secure his assistance in the House of Lords ! ’’ 

When Dummie had spelt his “toilsome march” through the 
first of the above extracts he turned round to the tall stranger, 
and, eying him with a sort of winking significance, said, — 

“So MacGrawler peaches, — blows the gaff on his pals, eh ! 
Vel, now, I always suspected that ’ere son of a gun ! Do you 
know, he used to be at the Mug many ’s a day, a teaching our 
little Paul, and says I to Piggy Lob, says I, ‘ Blow me tight, 
but that cove is a queer one ! and if he does not come to be 
scragged,’ says I, ‘ it vill only be because he ’ll turn a rusty, 
and scrag one of his pals ! ’ So you sees ” (here Dummie 
looked round, and his voice sank into a whisper), — “so you 
sees, Meester Pepper , I vas no fool there ! ” 

Long Ned dropped his pipe, and said sourly and with a sus- 
picious frown, “What! you know me?” 

“To be sure and sartin I does,” answered little Dummie, 
walking to the table where the robber sat. “Does not you 
know I? ” 

Ned regarded the interrogator with a sullen glance, which 
gradually brightened into knowledge. “ Ah ! ” said he, with 
the air of a Brummel, “Mr. Bummie, or Dummie, I think, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


421 


eh ! Shake a paw, — I ’m glad to see you. Recollect the last 
time I saw you, you rather affronted me. Never mind. I 
dare say you did not mean it.” 

Encouraged by this affable reception from the highwayman, 
though a little embarrassed by Ned’s allusion to former con- 
duct on his part, which he felt was just, Dummie grinned, 
pushed a stool near Ned, sat himself down, and carefully 
avoiding any immediate answer t/j Ned’s complaints, 
rejoined, — 

“Do you know, Meester Pepper, you struck I all of a heap? 
I could not have s’posed as how you ’d condescend nowadays 
to come to the Mug, vhere I never seed you but once afore. 
Lord love ye, they says as ’ow you go to all the fine places in 
ruffles, with a pair of silver pops in your vaistcoat pocket ! 
Vy, the boys hereabout say that ybu and Meester Tomlinson, 
and this ’ere poor devil in quod, vere the finest gemmen in 
town ; and, Lord, for to think of your ciwility to a pitiful rag- 
merchant, like I ! ” 

“Ah!” said Ned, gravely, “there are sad principles afloat 
now. They want to do away with all distinctions in ranks, 
— to make a duke no better than his valet, and a gentleman 
highwayman class with a filcher of fogies . 1 But, damme, if I 
don’t think misfortune levels us all quite enough; and misfor- 
tune brings me here, little Dummie.” 

“ Ah ! you vants to keep out of the vay of the bulkies ! ” 

“Right. Since poor Lovett was laid by the heels, which I 
must say was the fault of his own deuced gentlemanlike be- 
haviour to me and Augustus (you ’ve heard of Guz, you say), 
the knot of us seems quite broken. One’s own friends look 
inclined to play one fals§; and really, the queer cuffins hover 
so sharply upon us that I thought it safe to duck for a time. 
So I have taken a lodging in a cellar, and I intend for the next 
three months to board at the Mug. I have heard that I may 
be sure of lying snug here. Dummie, your health ! Give us 
the baccy.” 

“ I say, Meester Pepper, ” said Dummie, clearing his throat, 
when he had obeyed the request, “can you tell I, if so be you 
1 Pickpocket. 


422 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


’as met in your travels our little Paul? Poor chap! You 
knows as ’ow and vy he was sent to quod by Justice Burnflat. 
Vel, ven he got out, he vent to the devil, or summut like it, 
and ve have not ’eard a vord of him since. You ’members 
the lad, — a ’nation fine cull, tall and straight as a Harrow! ” 

“Why, you fool,” said Ned, “don’t you know” — then 
checking himself suddenly, “Ah! by the by, that rigmarole 
oath! I was not to tell; though now it’s past caring for, I 
fear ! It is no use looking after the seal when the letter ’s 
burned.” 

“Blow me,” cried Dunnaker, with unaffected vehemence, 
“ I sees as how you know vot ’s come of he ! Many ’s the good 
turn I ’ll do you, if you vill but tell I.” 

“ Why, does he owe you a dozen bobs; 2 or what, Durnmie? ” 
said ^Ted. 

“Not he, — not he,” cried Durnmie. 

“What then, you want to do him a mischief of some 
sort? ” 

“Do little Paul a mischief!” ejaculated Durnmie; “vy, 
I ’ve known the cull ever since he was that high ! No, but 
I vants to do him a great sarvice, Meester Pepper, and my- 
self too, — and you to boot, for aught that I know, Meester 
Pepper.” 

“ Humph ! ” said Ned, — “humph ! what do you mean? I do, 
it is true, know where Paul is ; but you must tell me first why 
you wish to know, otherwise you may ask your grandfather 
for me.” 

A long, sharp, wistful survey did Mr. Durnmie Dunnaker 
cast around him before he rejoined. All seemed safe and con- 
venient for confidential communication. The supine features 
of Mrs. Lobkins were hushed in a drowsy stupor; even the 
gray cat that lay by the fire was curled in the embrace of 
Morpheus. Nevertheless, it was in a close whisper that 
Durnmie spoke. 

“ I dares be bound, Meester Pepper, that you ’members veil 
ven Harry Cook, the great highvayman, — poor fellow ! he ’s 
gone vhere ve must all go, — brought you, then quite a 
2 Shillings. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 423 

gossoon , J for the first time to the little back parlour at the 
Cock and Hen, Dewereux Court? ” 

Ned nodded assent. 

“And you ’members as how I met Harry and you there, and 
I vas all afeard at you, — ’cause vy? I had never seen you 
afore, and ve vas a going to crack a swell’s crib . 2 And Harry 
spoke up for you, and said as ’ow though you had just gone 
on the town, you was already prime up to gammon. You 
’members, eh?” 

“Ay? I remember all,” said Ned; “it was the first and only 
house I ever had a hand in breaking into. Harry was a fel- 
low of low habits ; so I dropped his acquaintance, and took 
solely to the road, or a chance ingenuity now and then. I 
have no idea of a gentleman turning cracksman .” 8 

“Vel, so you vent vith us, and ve slipped you through a 
pane in the kitchen-vindow. You vas the least of us, big as 
you be now; and you vent round and opened the door for us; 
and ven you had opened the door, you saw a voman had joined 
us, and you were a funked then, and stayed vithout the crib , 
to keep vatch vhile ve vent in.” 

“Well, well,” cried Ned, “what the devil has all this 
rigmarole got to do with Paul?” 

“Now don’t be glimflashy, but let me go on smack right 
about. Yell, ven ve came out, you minds as ’ow the voman 
had a bundle in her arms, and you spake to her; and she 
answered you roughly, and left us all, and vent straight 
home ; and ve vent and fenced the swag 4 that wery night and 
afterwards napped the regulars . 5 And sure you made us laugh 
’artily, Meester Pepper, when you said, says you, 1 That ’ere 
voman is a rum bloven.’ So she vas, Meester Pepper ! ” 

“Oh, spare me,” said Ned, affectedly, “and make haste; 

* The reader has probably observed the use made by Dummie and Mrs. 
Lobkius of Irish phraseology or pronunciation. This is a remarkable trait in 
the dialect of the lowest orders in London, owing, we suppose, to their con- 
stant association with emigrants from “ the first flower of the earth.” Per- 
haps it is a modish affectation among the gentry of St. Giles’s, just as we eke 
out our mother-tongue with French at Mayfair. 

2 Break into a gentleman’s house. 3 Burglar. 

4 Sold the booty. 6 Took our shares. 


424 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


you keep me all in the dark. By the way, I remember that 
you joked me about the bundle; and when I asked what the 
woman had wrapped in it, you swore it was a child. Rather 
more likely that the girl, whoever she was, would have left a 
child behind her than carried one off ! ” The face of Dummie 
waxed big with conscious importance. 

“Veil, now, you would not believe us; but it vas all true. 
That ’ere bundle vas the voman’s child, — 1 s’pose an unnat- 
ural von by the gemman; she let us into the ’ouse on condi- 
tion we helped her off vith it. And, blow me tight, but ve 
paid ourselves vel for our trouble. That ’ere voman vas a 
strange cretur; they say she had been a lord’s blowen; but 
howsomever, she was as ’ot-’eaded and hodd as if she had 
T>een. There vas old Nick’s hown row made on the matter, 
and the revard for our [defection vas so great, that as you 
vas not much tried yet, Harr}' thought it best for to take you 
vith ’im down to the country, and told you as ’ow it vas all a 
flam about the child in the bundle ! ” 

“Faith,” said Ned, “I believed him readily enough; and 
poor Harry was twisted shortly after, and I went into Ireland 
for safety, where I stayed two years, — and deuced good claret 
I got there ! ” 

“So, vhiles you vas there,” continued Dummie, “poor Judy, 
the voman, died, — she died in this wery ’ouse, and left the 
horphan to the [afjfection of Piggy Lob, who was ’nation fond 
of it surety / Oh ! but I ’members vot a night it vas ven poor 
Judy died; the vind vistled like mad, and the rain tumbled 
about as if it had got a holiday; and there the poor creature 
lay raving just over ’ed of this room we sits in ! Laus-a-me, 
vat a sight it vas ! ” 

Here Dummie paused, and seemed to recall in imagination 
the scene he had witnessed; but over ’the mind of Long Ned a 
ray of light broke slowly. 

“Whew!” said he, lifting up his forefinger, “whew! I 
smell a rat; this stolen child, then, was no other than Paul. 
But, pray, to whom did the house belong? For that fact 
Harry never communicated to me. I only heard the 
was a lawyer, or parson, or some such thing.” 


owner 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


425 


“Vy now, I’ll tell you, but don’t be glimflashy. So, you 
see, ven Judy died, and Harry was scragged, I vas the only 
von living who vas up to the secret; and vhen Mother Lob vas 
a taking a drop to comfort her vhen Judy vent off, I hopens a 
great box in which poor Judy kept her duds and rattletraps, 
and surety I finds at the bottom of the box hever so many 
letters and sicli like, — for I knew as ’ow they vas there; so I 
vhips these off and carries ’em ’ome with me, and soon arter, 
Mother Lob sold me the box o’ duds for two quids — ’cause 
vy? I vas a rag-merchant. So now I ’solved, since the secret 
vas all in my hown keeping, to keep it as tight as vinkey ; for 
first, you sees as ’ow I vas afeard I should be hanged if I vent 
for to tell, — ’cause vy? I stole a vatch, and lots more, as 
veil as the hurchin; and next 1 vas afeard as ’ow the mother 
might come back and haunt me the same as Sail haunted 
Villy, for it vas a ’orrid night ven her soul took ving. And 
hover and above this, Meester Pepper, I thought summut 
might turn hup by and by, in vhich it vould be best for I to 
keep my hown counsel and nab the revard, if I hever durst 
make myself known.” 

Here Dummie proceeded to narrate how frightened he had 
been lest Ned should discover all, when (as it may be remem- 
bered, Pepper informed Paul at the beginning of this history) 
he encountered that worthy at Dame Lobkins’s house; how 
this fear had induced him to testify to Pepper that coldness 
and rudeness which had so enraged the haughty highwayman; 
and how great had been his relief and delight at finding that 
Ned returned to the Mug no more. He next proceeded to 
inform his new confidant of his meeting with the father (the 
sagacious reader knows where and when), and of what took 
place at that event. He said how, in his first negotiation 
with the father, prudently resolving to communicate drop by 
drop such information as he possessed, he merely, besides 
confessing to a share in the robbery, stated that he thought 
he knew the house, etc., to which the infant had been con- 
signed, — and that, if so, it was still alive; but that he would 
inquire. He then related how the sanguine father, who saw 
that hanging Dummie for the robbery of his house might not 


426 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


be half so likely a method to recover his son as bribery and 
conciliation, not only forgave him his former outrage, but 
whetted his appetite to the search by rewarding him for his 
disclosure. He then proceeded to state how, unable any- 
where to find Paul, or any trace of him, he amused the sire 
from time to time with forged excuses ; how, at first, the sums 
he received made him by no means desirous to expedite a dis- 
covery that would terminate such satisfactory receipts ; how 
at length the magnitude of the proffered reward, joined to the 
threats of the sire, had made him become seriously anxious 
to learn the real fate and present “ whereabout ” of Paul; 
how, the last time he had seen the father, he had, b}^ way of 
propitiation and first fruit, taken to him all the papers left by 
the unhappy mother and secreted by himself ; and how he was 
now delighted to find that Ned was acquainted with Paul's 
address. Since he despaired of finding Paul by his own exer- 
tions alone, he became less tenacious of his secret; and he 
now proffered Ned, on discovery of Paul, a third of that 
reward the whole of which he had once hoped to engross. 

Ned's eyes and mouth opened at this proposition. “But 
the name, — the name of the father? You have not told me 
that yet ! ” cried he, impatiently. 

“Noa, noa!” said Dummie, archly, “I doesn’t tell you all, 
till you tells I summut. Vhere ’s little Paul, I say; and 
vhere be us to get at him?” 

Ned heaved a sigh. 

“As for the oath,” said he, musingly, “it would be a sin to 
keep it, now that to break it can do him no harm, and may do 
him good, especially as, in case of imprisonment or death, the 
oath is not held to be binding ; yet I fear it is too late for the 
reward. The father will scarcely thank you for finding his 

son ! — Know, Dummie, that Paul is in jail, and that he 

is one and the same person as Captain Lovett ! ” 

Astonishment never wrote in more legible characters than 
she now displayed on the rough features of Dummie Dun- 
naker. So strong are the sympathies of a profession com- 
pared with all others, that Dummie’s first confused thought 
was that of pride. “ The great Captain Lovett ! ” he faltered. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 427 

“ Little Paul at the top of the profession! Lord, Lord! I 
always said as how he ’d the hambition to rise ! ” 

“Well, well, but the father’s name?” 

At this question the expression of Dummie’s face fell; a 
sudden horror struggled to his eyes — 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

Why is it that at moments there creeps over us an awe, a terror, over- 
powering but undefined ■? Why is it that we shudder without a cause, and 
feel the warm life-blood stand still in its courses ? Are the dead too near ? 

Falkland 


Ha ! sayest thou ! Hideous thought, I feel it twine 
O’er my iced heart, as curls around his prey 
The sure and deadly serpent ! 

What ! in the hush and in the solitude 
Passed that dread soul away ? 

Love and Hatred. 

The evening prior to that morning in which the above 
conversation occurred, Brandon passed alone in his lodging 
at . He had felt himself too unwell to attend the cus- 

tomary wassail, and he sat indolently musing in the solitude 
of the old-fashioned chamber to which he was consigned. 
There, two wax-candles on the smooth, quaint table dimly 
struggled against the gloom of heavy panels, which were 
relieved at unfrequent intervals by portraits in oaken frames, 
dingy, harsh, and important with the pomp of laced garments 
and flowing wigs. The predilection of the landlady for mod- 
ern tastes had, indeed, on each side of the huge fireplace 
suspended more novel masterpieces of the fine arts. In em- 
blematic gorgeousness huhg the pictures of the four Seasons, 
buxom wenches all, save Winter, who was deformedly bodied 
forth in the likeness of an aged carle. These were inter- 


428 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


spersed by an engraving of Lord Mauleverer, the lieutenant 
of the neighbouring county, looking extremely majestical in 
his peer’s robes; and by three typifications of Faith, Hope, 
and Charity, — ladies with whom it may be doubted if the 
gay earl ever before cultivated so close an intimacy. Cur- 
tains, of that antique chintz in which fasces of stripes are 
alternated by rows of flowers, filled the interstices of three 
windows; a heavy sideboard occupied the greater portion of 
one side of the room; and on the opposite side, in the rear 
of Brandon, a vast screen stretched its slow length along, 
and relieved the unpopulated and as it were desolate comfort 
of the apartment. 

Pale and imperfectly streamed the light upon Brandon’s 
face, as he sat in his large chair, leaning his cheek on one 
hand, and gazing with the unconscious earnestness of abstrac- 
tion on the clear fire. At that moment a whole phalanx of 
gloomy thought was sweeping in successive array across his 
mind. His early ambition, his ill-omened marriage, the 
causes of his after-rise in the wrong-judging world, the first 
dawn of his reputation, his rapid and flattering successes, his 
present elevation, his aspiring hope of far higher office, and 
more patrician honours, — all these phantoms passed before 
him in checkered shadow and light; but ever with each 
stalked one disquieting and dark remembrance, — the loss 
of his only son. 

Weaving his ambition with the wish to revive the pride of 
his hereditary name, every acquisition of fortune or of fame 
rendered him yet more anxious to find the only one who could 
perpetuate these hollow distinctions to his race. 

“ I shall recover him yet ! ” he broke out suddenly and 
aloud. As he spoke, a quick, darting, spasmodic pain ran 
shivering through his whole frame, and then fixed for one 
instant on his heart with a gripe like the talons of a bird; it 
passed away, and was followed by a deadly sickness. Bran- 
don rose, and filling himself a large tumbler of water, drank 
with avidity. The sickness passed off like the preceding 
pain; but the sensation had of late been often felt by Bran- 
don, and disregarded, — for few persons were less afflicted with 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


429 


the self-torture of hypochondria; but now, that night, whether 
it was more keen than usual, or whether his thought had 
touched on the string that jars naturally on the most startling 
of human anticipations, we know not, but, as he resumed his 
seat, the idea of his approaching dissolution shot like an ice- 
bolt through his breast. 

So intent was this scheming man upon the living objects of 
the world, and so little were his thoughts accustomed to turn 
toward the ultimate goal of all things, that this idea obtrud- 
ing itself abruptly upon him, startled him with a ghastly 
awe. He felt the colour rush from his cheek, and a tingling 
and involuntary pain ran wandering through the channels of 
his blood, even from the roots of the hair to the soles of his 
feet. But the stern soul of Brandon w^as not one which 
shadows could long affright. He nerved himself to meet 
the grim thought thus forced upon his mental eye, and he 
gazed on it with a steady and enduring look. 

“Well,” thought he, "is my hour coming, or have I yet the 
ordinary term of mortal nature to expect? It is true, I have 
lately suffered these strange revulsions of the frame with 
somewhat of an alarming frequency; perhaps this medicine, 
which healed the anguish of one infirmity, has produced 
another more immediately deadly. Yet why should I think 
this? My sleep is sound and calm, my habits temperate, my 
mind active and clear as in its best days. In my youth I 
never played the traitor with my constitution ; why should it 
desert me at the very threshold of my age? Nay, nay, these 
are but passing twitches, chills of the blood that begins to 
wax thin. Shall 1 learn to be less rigorous in my diet? Per- 
haps wine may reward my abstinence in avoiding it for my 
luxuries, by becoming a cordial to my necessities! Ay, I will 
consult, — I will consult, I must not die yet. I have — let 
me see, three — four grades to gain before the ladder is scaled. 
And, above all, I must regain my child! Lucy married to 
Mauleverer, myself a peer, my son wedded to — whom ? Pray 
God he be not married' already ! My nephews and my chil- 
dren nobles ! the house of Brandon restored, my power high 
in the upward gaze of men, my fame set on a more lasting 


430 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


basis than a skill in the quirks of law, — these are yet to 
come ; these I will not die till I have enjoyed ! Men die not 
till their destinies are fulfilled. The spirit that swells and 
soars within me says that the destiny of William Brandon is 
but half begun ! ” 

With this conclusion, Brandon sought his pillow. What 
were the reflections of the prisoner whom he was to judge? 
Need we ask? Let us picture to ourselves his shattered 
health, the languor of sickness heightening the gloom which 
makes the very air of a jail; his certainty of the doom to be 
passed against him; his knowledge that the uncle of Lucy 
Brandon was to be his judge, that Mauleverer was to be his 
accuser, and that in all human probability the only woman he 
had ever loved must sooner or later learn the criminality of 
his life and the ignominy of his death; let us but glance 
at the above blackness of circumstances that surrounde’d him, 
and it would seem that there is but little doubt as to the com- 
plexion of his thoughts ! Perhaps, indeed, even in that ter- 
rible and desolate hour one sweet face shone on him, “and 
dashed the darkness all away.” Perhaps, too, whatever might 
be the stings of his conscience, one thought, one remembrance 
of a temptation mastered and a sin escaped, brought to his 
eyes tears that were sweet and healing in their source. But 
the heart of a man in Clifford’s awful situation is dark and 
inscrutable ; and often when the wildest and gloomiest exter* 
nal circumstances surround us, their reflection sleeps like a 
shadow, calm and still upon the mind. 

The next morning, the whole town of (a town in 

which, we regret to say, an accident once detained ourself 
for three wretched days, and which we can, speaking there- 
fore from profound experience, assert to be in ordinary times 
the most melancholy and peopleless-looking congregation of 
houses that a sober imagination can conceive) exhibited a 
scene of such bustle, animation, and jovial anxiety as the 
trial for life or death to a fellow-creature can alone excite in 
the phlegmatic breasts of the English. Around the court the 
crowd thickened with every moment, until the whole market- 
place in which the townhall was situated became one living 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


431 


mass. The windows of the houses were filled with women, 
some of whom had taken that opportunity to make parties to 
breakfast; and little round tables, with tea and toast on them, 
caught the eyes of the grinning mobbists as they gaped impa- 
tiently upwards. 

“Ben,” said a stout yeoman, tossing up a halfpenny, and 
catching the said coin in his right hand, which he immedi- 
ately covered with the left, — “Ben, he^ds or tails that Lovett 
is hanged; heads hanged, tails not, for a crown.” 

“Petticoats, to be sure,” quoth Ben, eating an apple; and 
it was heads ! 

“Damme, you’ve lost!” cried the yeoman, rubbing his 
rough hands with glee. 

It would have been a fine sight for Asmodeus, could he 
have perched on one of the house tops of the market-place of 
, and looked on the murmuring and heaving sea of mortal- 
ity below. Oh! the sight of a crowd round a court of law 
or a gibbet ought to make the devil split himself with 
laughter. 

While the mob was fretting, and pushing, and swearing, 
and grinning, and betting, and picking pockets, and trampling 
feet, and tearing gowns, and scrambling nearer and nearer to 
the doors and windows of the court, Brandon was slowly con- 
cluding his abstemious repast, preparatory to attendance on 
his judicial duties. His footman entered with a letter. Sir 
William glanced rapidly over the seal (one of those immense 
sacrifices of wax used at that day), adorned with a huge coat- 
of-arms, surmounted with an earl’s coronet, and decorated 
on either side with those supporters so dear to heraldic taste. 
He then tore open the letter, and read as follows : — 

My dear Sir William, — You know that in the last conversation 
I had the honour to hold with you I alluded, though perhaps somewhat 
distantly, to the esteem which his Majesty had personally expressed for 
your principles and talents, and his wish to testify it at the earliest 
opportunity. There will be, as you are doubtless aware, an immediate 
creation of four peerages. Your name stands second on the list. The 
choice of title his Majesty graciously leaves to you ; but he has hinted 
that the respectable antiquity of your family would make him best 


432 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


pleased were you to select the name of your own family- seat, which, if 
I mistake not, is Warlock. You will instruct me at your leisure as to 
the manner in which the patent should be made out, touching the suc- 
cession, etc. Perhaps (excuse the license of an old friend) this event 
may induce you to forsake your long-cherished celibacy. I need not add 
that this accession of rank will be accompanied by professional elevation. 
You will see by the papers that the death of leaves vacant the dig- 

nity of Chief Baron ; and I am at length empowered to offer you a 
station proportioned to your character and talents. 

With great consideration, believe me, my dear Sir, 

Very truly yours, 

Private and Confidential. 

. Brandon’s dark eye glanced quickly from the signature of 
the premier, affixed to this communication, towards the mirror 
opposite him. He strode to it, and examined his own coun- 
tenance with a long and wistful gaze. Never, we think, did 
youthful gallant about to repair to the trysting-spot, in which 
fair looks make the greatest of earthly advantages, gaze more 
anxiously on the impartial glass than now did the ascetic 
and scornful judge; and never, we ween, did the eye of the 
said gallant retire with a more satisfied and triumphant 
expression. 

“Yes, yes!” muttered the judge, “no sign of infirmity is 
yet written here ; the blood flows clear and warm enough; 
the cheek looks firm too, and passing full, for one who was 
always of the lean kine. Aha! this letter is a cordial, an 
elixir vitce. I feel as if a new lease were granted to the 
reluctant tenant. Lord Warlock, the first Baron of Warlock, 
Lord Chief Baron, — what next?” 

As he spoke, he strode unconsciously away, folding his 
arms with that sort of joyous and complacent gesture which 
implies the idea of a man hugging himself in a silent delight. 
Assuredly had the most skilful physician then looked upon 
the ardent and all -lighted face, the firm step, the elastic and 
muscular frame, the vigorous air of Brandon, as he mentally 
continued his soliloquy, he would have predicted for him as 
fair a grasp on longevity as the chances of mortal life will 
allow. He was interrupted by the servant entering. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 438 

“It is twenty-five minutes after nine, sir,” said he, 
respectfully. 

“Sir, — sir!” repeated Brandon. “Ah, well! so late!” 

“Yes, sir, and the sheriff’s carriage is almost at the door.” 

“Humph! Minister, — Peer, — Warlock, — succession. My 
son, my son ! would to God that I could find thee ! ” 

Such were Brandon’s last thoughts as he left the room. It 
was with great difficulty, so dense w^s the crowd, that the 
judge drove up to the court. As the carriage slowly passed, 
the spectators pressed to the windows of the vehicle, and 
stood on tiptoe to catch a view of the celebrated lawyer. 
Brandon’s face, never long indicative of his feelings, had 
now settled into its usual gravity; and the severe loftiness 
of his look chilled, while it satisfied, the curiosity of the vul- 
gar. It had been ordered that no person should be admitted 
until the judge had taken his seat on the bench; and this 
order occasioned so much delay, owing to the accumulated 
pressure of the vast and miscellaneous group, that it was 
more than half an hour before the court was able to obtain 
that decent order suiting the solemnity of the occasion. At 
five minutes before ten a universal and indescribable move- 
ment announced that the prisoner was put to the bar. We 
read in one of the journals of that day, that “ on being put to 
the bar,, the prisoner looked round with a long and anxious 
gaze, which at length settled on the judge, and then dropped, 
while the prisoner was observed to change countenance 
slightly. Lovett was dressed in a plain dark suit ; he seemed 
to be about six feet high; and though thin and worn, proba- 
bly from the effect of his wound and imprisonment, he is 
remarkably well made, and exhibits the outward appearance 
of that great personal strength which he is said to possess, 
and -which is not unfrequently the characteristic of daring 
criminals. His face is handsome and prepossessing, his eyes 
and hair dark, and his complexion pale, possibly from the 
effects of his confinement; there was a certain sternness in 
his countenance during, the greater part of the trial. His 
behaviour was remarkably collected and composed. The pris- 
oner listened with the greatest attention to the indictment, 


28 


434 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


which the reader will find in another part of our paper, charg- 
ing him with the highway robbery of Lord Mauleverer, on the 

night of the of last. He occasionally inclined his 

body forward, and turned his ear towards the court; and he 
was observed, as the jury were sworn, to look steadily in the 
face of each. He breathed thick and hard when the various 
aliases he had assumed — Howard, Cavendish, Jackson, etc., 
— were read; but smiled with an unaccountable expression 
when the list was completed, as if exulting at the varieties of 
his ingenuity. At twenty-five minutes past ten Mr. Dye- 
bright, the counsel for the crown, stated the case to the 
jury .’ 5 

Mr. Dyebright was a lawyer of great eminence; he had 
been a Whig all his life, but had latterly become remarkable 
for his insincerity, and subservience to the wishes of the 
higher powers. His talents were peculiar and effective. If 
he had little eloquence, he had much power; and his legal 
knowledge was sound and extensive. Many of his brethren 
excelled him in display; but no one, like him, possessed the 
secret of addressing a jury. Winningly familiar; seemingly 
candid to a degree that scarcely did justice to his cause, as if 
he were in an agony lest he should persuade you to lean a 
hair-breadth more on his side of the case than justice would 
allow; apparently all made up of good, homely, virtuous feel- 
ing, a disinterested regard for truth, a blunt yet tender hon- 
esty, seasoned with a few amiable fireside prejudices, which 
always come home to the hearts of your fathers of families 
and thorough-bred Britons; versed in all the niceties of lan- 
guage, and the magic of names ; if he were defending crime, 
carefully calling it misfortune; if attacking misfortune, con- 
stantly calling it crime, — Mr. Dyebright was exactly the 
man born to pervert justice, to tickle jurors, to cozen truth 
with a friendly smile, and to obtain a vast reputation as an 
excellent advocate. He began with a long preliminary flour- 
ish on the importance of the case. He said that he should 
with the most scrupulous delicacy avoid every remark calcu- 
lated to raise unnecessary prejudice against the prisoner. He 
should not allude to his unhappy notoriety, his associations 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


435 


with the lowest dregs. (Here up jumped the counsel for the 
prisoner, and Mr. Dyebright was called to order.) “God 
knows/’ resumed the learned gentleman, looking wistfully 
at the jury, “ that my learned friend might have spared him- 
self this warning. God knows that I would rather fifty of 
the wretched inmates of this county jail were to escape 
unharmed than that a hair of the prisoner you behold at the 
bar should be unjustly touched. The life of a human being 
is at stake; we should be guilty ourselves of a crime which 
on our deathbeds we should tremble to recall, were we to 
suffer any consideration, whether of interest or of prejudice, 
or of undue fear for our own properties and lives, to bias us 
even to the turning of a straw against the unfortunate pris- 
oner. Gentlemen, if you find me travelling a single inch 
from my case, — if you find me saying a single word calcu- 
lated to harm the prisoner in your eyes, and unsupported by 
the evidence I shall call, — then I implore you not to depend 
upon the vigilance of my learned friend, but to treasure these 
my errors in your recollection, and to consider them as so 
many arguments in favour of the prisoner. If, gentlemen, I 
could by any possibility imagine that your verdict would be 
favourable to the prisoner, I can, unaffectedly and from the 
bottom of my heart, declare to you that I should rejoice; a 
case might be lost, but a fellow-creature would be saved! 
Callous as we of the legal profession are believed, we have 
feelings like you; and I ask any one of you, gentlemen of the 
jury, any one who has ever felt the pleasures of social inter- 
course, the joy of charity, the heart’s reward of benevolence, 
— 1 ask any ope of you, whether, if he were placed in the 
arduous situation I now hold, all the persuasions of vanity 
would not vanish at once from his mind, and whether his de- 
feat as an advocate would not be rendered dear to him by the 
common and fleshly sympathies of a man. But, gentlemen” 
(Mr. Dyebright’s voice at once deepened and faltered), “there 
is a duty, a painful duty, we owe to our country; and never, 
in the long course of my professional experience, do I remem- 
ber an instance in which it was more called forth than in the 
present. Mercy, gentlemen, is dear, very dear to us all; but 


436 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


it is the deadliest injury we can inflict on mankind when it is 
bought at the expense of justice.” 

The learned gentleman then, after a few further prefatory 

observations, proceeded to state how, on the night of 

last, Lord Mauleverer was stopped and robbed by three mea 
masked, of a sum of money amounting to above £350, a 
diamond snuff-box, rings, watch, and a case of most valuable 
jewels, — how Lord Mauleverer, in endeavouring to defend 
himself, had passed a bullet through the clothes of one of the 
robbers, — how it would be proved that the garments of the 
prisoner, found in a cave in Oxfordshire, and positively sworn 
to by a witness he should produce, exhibited a rent similar to 
such a one as a bullet would produce, — how, moreover, it 
would be positively sworn to by the same witness, that the 
prisoner Lovett had come to the cavern with two accomplices 
not since taken up, since their rescue by the prisoner, and 
boasted of the robbery he had just committed; that in the 
clothes and sleeping apartment of the robber the articles stolen 
from Lord Mauleverer were found; and that the purse con- 
taining the notes for £300, the only thing the prisoner could 
probably have obtained time to carry off with him, on the 
morning on which the cave was entered by the policemen, was 
found on his person on the day on which he had attempted 
the rescue of his comrades, and had been apprehended in that 
attempt. He stated, moreover, that the dress found in the 
cavern, and sworn to by one witness he should produce as 
belonging to the prisoner, answered exactly to the description 
of the clothes worn by the principal robber, and sworn to by 
Lord Mauleverer, his servant, and the postilions. In like 
manner the colour of one of the horses found in the cavern 
corresponded with that rode by the highwayman. On these 
circumstantial proofs, aided by the immediate testimony of the 
king’s evidence (that witness whom he should produce) he 
rested a case which could, he averred, leave no doubt on the 
minds of an impartial jury. Such, briefly and plainly alleged, 
made the substance of the details entered into by the learned 
counsel, who then proceeded to call his witnesses. The evi- 
dence of Lord Mauleverer (who was staying at Mauleverer 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


437 


Park, which was within a few miles of ) was short and 

clear (it was noticed as a singular circumstance, that at the 
end of the evidence the prisoner bowed respectfully to his 
lordship). The witness of the postilions and of the valet was 
no less concise; nor could all the ingenuity of Clifford’s 
counsel shake any part of their evidence in his cross-examina- 
tion. The main witness depended on. by the crown was now 
summoned, and the solemn countenance of Peter MacGrawler 
rose on the eyes of the jury. One look of cold and blighting 
contempt fell on him from the eye of the prisoner, who did 
not again deign to regard him during the whole of his 
examination. 

The witness of MacGrawler was delivered with a pomposity 
worthy of the ex-editor of the “Asinseum.” Nevertheless, 
by the skill of Mr. Dyebright, it was rendered sufficiently 
clear a story to leave an impression on the jury damnatory to 
the interests of the prisoner. The counsel on the opposite 
side was not slow in perceiving the ground acquired by the 
adverse party ; so, clearing his throat, he rose with a sneering 
air to the cross-examination. 

“So, so,” began Mr. Botheram, putting on a pair of remark- 
ably large spectacles, wherewith he truculently regarded the 
witness, — “so, so, Mr. MacGrawler, — is that your name, 
eh, eh? Ah, it is, is it? A very respectable name it is too, 

I warrant. Well, sir, look at me. Now, on your oath, 
remember, were you ever the editor of a certain thing pub- 
lished every Wednesday, and called the ‘Altenaeum,’ or the 
‘Asinseum,’ or some such name?” 

Commencing with this insidious and self-damnatory ques- 
tion, the learned counsel then proceeded, as artfully as he was 
ablfe, through a series of interrogatories calculated to injure 
the character, the respectable character, of MacGrawler, and 
weaken his testimony in the eyes of the jury. He succeeded 
in exciting in the audience that feeling of merriment where- 
with the vulgar are always so delighted to intersperse the dull 
seriousness of hanging a human being. But though the jury 
themselves grinned, they were not convinced. The Scotsman 
retired from the witness-box “scotched,” perhaps, in reputa- 


438 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


tion, but not “killed” as to testimony. It was just before 
this witness concluded, that Lord Mauleverer caused to be 
handed to the judge a small slip of paper, containing merely 
these words in pencil : — 

Dear Brandon, — A dinner waits you at Mauleverer Park, only three 

miles hence. Lord and the Bishop of meet you. Plenty of 

news from London, and a letter about you, which I will show to no one 
till we meet. Make haste and hang this poor fellow, that I may see 
you the sooner ; and it is bad for both of us to wait long for a regular 
meal like dinner. I can’t stay longer, it is so hot, and my nerves were 
always susceptible. 

Yours, Mauleverer. 

If you will come, give me a nod. You know my hour, — it is always 
the same. 

The judge, glancing over the note, inclined his head gravely 
to the earl, who withdrew; and in one minute afterwards, a 
heavy and breathless silence fell over the whole court. The 
prisoner was called upon for his defence : it was singular what 
a different sensation to that existing in their breasts the mo- 
ment before crept thrillingly through the audience. Hushed 
was every whisper, vanished was every smile that the late 
cross-examination had excited; a sudden and chilling sense 
of the dread importance of the tribunal made itself abruptly 
felt in the minds of every one present. 

Perhaps, as in the gloomy satire of Hogarth (the moral 
Mephistopheles of painters), the close neighbourhood of pain 
to mirth made the former come with the homelier shock to 
the heart; be that as it may, a freezing anxiety, numbing the 
pulse and stirring through the air, made every man in that 
various crowd feel a sympathy of awe with his neighbour, 
excepting only the hardened judge and the hackneyed law- 
yers, and one spectator, — an idiot who had thrust himself in 
with the general press, and stood, within a few paces of the 
prisoner, grinning unconsciously, and every now and then 
winking with a glassy eye at some one at a distance, whose 
vigilance he had probably eluded. 

The face and aspect, even the attitude, of the prisoner were 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


439 


well fitted to heighten the effect which would naturally have 
been created by any man under the same fearful doom. He 
stood at the very front of the bar, and his tall and noble figure 
was drawn up to its full height; a glow of excitement spread 
itself gradually over features at all times striking, and lighted 
an eye naturally eloquent, and to which various emotions at 
that time gave a more than commonly deep and impressive 
expression. He began thus : — 

“ My lord, I have little to say, and I may at once relieve the 
anxiety of my counsel, who now looks wistfully upon me, and 
add that that little will scarcely embrace the object of defence. 
Why should I defend myself? Why should I endeavour 
to protract a life that a few days, more or less, will termi- 
nate, according to the ordinary calculations of chance? Such 
as it is and has been, my life is vowed to the law, and the law 
will have the offering. Could I escape from this indictment, I 
know that seven others await me, and that by one or the other 
of these my conviction and my sentence must come. Life may 
be sweet to all of us, my lord; and were it possible that mine 
could be spared yet a while, that continued life might make a 
better atonement for past actions than a death which, abrupt 
and premature, calls for repentance while it forbids redress. 

“But when the dark side of things is our only choice, it is 
useless to regard the bright; idle to fix our eyes upon life, 
when death is at hand; useless to speak of contrition, when 
we are denied its proof. It is the usual policy of prisoners 
in my situation to address the feelings and flatter the preju- 
dices of the jury; to descant on the excellence of our laws, 
while they endeavour to disarm them ; to praise justice, yet 
demand mercy; to talk of expecting acquittal, yet boast of 
submitting without a -murmur to condemnation. For me, to 
whom all earthly interests are dead, this policy is idle and 
superfluous. I hesitate not to tell you, my lord judge, — to 
proclaim to you, gentlemen of the jury, — that the laws which 
I have broken through my life I despise in death ! Your laws 
are but of two classes; the one makes criminals, the other 
punishes them. I have suffered by the one ; I am about to 
perish by the other. 


440 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“ My lord, it was the turn of a straw which made me what I 
am. Seven years ago I was sent to the house of correction for 
an offence which I did not commit. I went thither, a boy who 
had never infringed a single law ; I came forth, in a few weeks, 
a man who was prepared to break all laws ! Whence was this 
change? Was it my fault, or that of my condemners? You 
had first wronged me by a punishment which I did not de- 
serve; you wronged me yet more deeply when (even had I 
been guilty of the first offence) I was sentenced to herd with 
hardened offenders, and graduates in vice and vice’s methods 
of support. The laws themselves caused me to break the 
laws: first, by implanting within me the goading sense of 
injustice; secondly, by submitting me to the corruption of 
example. Thus, I repeat, — and I trust my words will sink 
solemnly into the hearts of all present, — your legislation 
made me what I am; and it now destroys me, as it has 
destroyed thousands, for being what it made me! But for 
this, the first aggression on me, I might have been what the 
world terms honest, — I might have advanced to old age and 
a peaceful grave through the harmless cheateries of trade or 
the honoured falsehoods of a profession. Nay, I might have 
supported the laws which I have now braved; like the coun- 
sel opposed to me, I might have grown sleek on the vices of 
others, and advanced to honour by my ingenuity in hanging 
my fellow-creatures ! The canting and prejudging part of the 
Press has affected to set before you the merits of 1 honest 
ability,’ or laborious trade,’ in opposition to my offences. 
What, I beseech you, are the props of your ‘ honest ’ exertion, 
— the profits of ‘ trade ’? Are there no bribes to menials? Is 
there no adulteration of goods? Are the rich never duped in 
the price they pay? Are the poor never wronged in the qual- 
ity they receive? Is there honesty in the bread you eat, in a 
single necessity which clothes or feeds or warms you? Let 
those whom the law protects consider it a protector: when 
did it ever protect me ? When did it ever protect the poor 
man? The government of a State, the institutions of law, pro- 
fess to provide for all those who * obey.’ Mark! a man hum 
gers, — do you feed him? He is naked, — do you clothe him? 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


441 


If not, you break your covenant, you drive him back to the 
first law of nature, and you hang him, not because he is 
guilty, but because you have left him naked and starving! 
[A murmur among the mob below, with great difficulty 
silenced.] One thing only I will add, and that not to move 
your mercy, — no, nor to invest my fate with an idle and 
momentary interest, — but because there v are some persons in 
this world who have not known me as the criminal who stands 
before you, and whom the tidings of my fate may hereafter 
reach; and I would not have those persons view me in blacker 
colours than I deserve. Among all the rumours, gentlemen, 
that have reached you, ihrough all the tales and fables kindled 
from my unhappy notoriety and my approaching doom, I put 
it to you, if you have heard that I have committed one san- 
guinary action or one ruinous and deliberate fraud. You have 
heard that I have lived by the plunder of the rich, — I do not 
deny the charge. From the grinding of the poor, the habitual 
overreaching, or the systematic pilfering of my neighbours, 
my conscience is as free as it is from the charge of cruelty 
and bloodshed. Those errors I leave to honest mediocrity or 
virtuous exertion! You may perhaps find, too, that my life 
has not passed through a career of outrage without scattering 
some few benefits on the road. In destroying me, it is true 
that you will have the consolation to think that among the 
benefits you derive from my sentence will be the salutary 
encouragement y*ou give to other offenders to offend to the 
last degree, and to divest outrage of no single aggravation! 
But if this does not seem to you any very powerful induce- 
ment, you may pause before you cut off from all amendment a 
man who seems neither wholly hardened nor utterly beyond 
atonement. . My lord, my counsel would have wished to sum- 
mon witnesses, — some to bear testimony to redeeming points 
in my own character, others to invalidate the oath of the wit 
ness against me, — a man whom I saved from destruction in 
order that he might destroy me. I do not think either neces- 
sary. The public Press has already said of me what little 
good does not shock the truth; and had I not possessed some- 
thing of those qualities which society does not disesteem, you 


442 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


would not have beheld me here at this hour ! If I had saved 
myself as well as my companions, I should have left this 
country, perhaps forever, and commenced a very different 
career abroad. I committed offences ; I eluded you; I com- 
mitted what, in my case, was an act of duty : I am seized, and 
I perish. But the weakness of my body destroys me, not the 
strength of your malice. Had I ” (and as the prisoner spake, 
the haughty and rapid motion, the enlarging of the form, pro- 
duced by the passion of the moment, made impressively con- 
spicuous to all the remarkable power of his frame), — “had I 
but my wonted health, my wonted command over these limbs 
and these veins, I would have asked no friend, no ally, to 
favour my escape. I tell you, engines and guardians of the 
law, that I would have mocked your chains and defied your 
walls, as ye know that I have mocked and defied them before. 
But my blood creeps now only in drops through its courses; 
and the heart that I had of old stirs feebly and heavily within 
me.” The prisoner paused a moment, and resumed in an 
altered tone: “Leaving, then, my own character to the ordeal 
of report, I cannot perhaps do better than leave to the same 
criterion that of the witness against me. I will candidly own 
that under other circumstances it might have been otherwise. 

I will candidly avow that I might have then used such means 
as your law awards me to procure an acquittal and to prolong 
my existence, — though in a new scene; as it is, what matters 
the cause in which I receive my sentence? Nay, it is even 
better to suffer by the first than to linger to the last. It is 
some consolation not again to stand where I now stand; to 
go through the humbling solemnities which I have this day 
endured; to see the smile of some, and retort the frown of 
others ; to wrestle with the anxiety of the heart, and to de- 
pend on the caprice of the excited nerves. It is something to 
feel one part of the drama of disgrace is over, and that I may 
wait unmolested in my den until, for one time only, I am again 
the butt of the unthinking and the monster of the crowd. 
My lord, I have now done ! To you, whom the law deems the 
prisoner’s counsel, — to you, gentlemen of the jury, to whom 
it has delegated his fate, — I leave the chances of my life.” 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


443 


The prisoner ceased; but the same heavy silence which, 
save when broken by one solitary murmur, had lain over the 
court during his speech, still continued even for several mo- 
ments after that deep and firm voice had died on the ear. So 
different had been the defence of the prisoner from that which 
had been expected; so assuredly did the more hackneyed part 
of the audience, even as he had proceeded, imagine that by 
some artful turn he would at length wind into the usual 
courses of defence, — that when his unfaltering and almost 
stern accents paused, men were not prepared to feel that his 
speech was finished, and the pause involuntarily jarred on 
them as untimeous and abrupt. At length, when each of the 
audience slowly awoke to the conviction that the prisoner had 
indeed concluded his harangue, a movement, eloquent of feel- 
ings released from a suspense, which had been perhaps the 
more earnest and the more blended with awe, from the bold- 
ness and novelty of the words on which it hung, circled round 
the court. The jurors looked confusedly at each other, but 
not one of them spoke, even by a whisper; their feelings, 
which had been aroused by the speech of the prisoner, had not 
from its shortness, its singularity, and the haughty impolicy 
of its tone, been so far guided by its course as to settle into 
any state of mind clearly favourable to him, or the reverse; 
so that each man waited for his neighbour to speak first, in 
order that he might find, as it were, in another, a kind of 
clew to the indistinct and excited feelings which wanted 
utterance in himself. 

The judge, who had been from the first attracted by the air 
and aspect of the prisoner, had perhaps, notwithstanding the 
hardness of his mind, more approvingly than any one present 
listened to the defence; for in the scorn of the hollow institu- 
tions and the mock honesty of social life, so defyingly mani- 
fested by the prisoner, Brandon recognized elements of mind 
remarkably congenial to his own; and this sympathy was 
heightened by the hardihood of physical nerve and moral 
intrepidity displayed by the prisoner, — qualities which 
among men of a similar mould often form the strongest motive 
of esteem, and sometimes (as we read of in the Imperial Cor- 


444 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


sican and his chiefs) the only point of attraction! Brandon 
was, however, soon recalled to his cold self by a murmur of 
vague applause circling throughout the common crowd, among 
whom the general impulse always manifests itself first, and 
to whom the opinions of the prisoner, though but imperfectly 
understood, came more immediately home than they did to 
the better and richer classes of the audience. Ever alive to 
the decorums of form, Brandon instantly ordered silence in the 
court; and when it was again restored, and it was fully under- 
stood that the prisoner’s defence had closed, the judge pro- 
ceeded to sum up. 

It is worthy of remark that many of the qualities of mind 
which seem most unamiable in private life often conduce with 
a singular felicity to the ends of public; and thus the stony 
firmness characteristic of Brandon was a main cause which 
made him admirable as a judge, — for men in office err no less 
from their feelings than their interests. 

Glancing over his notes, the judge inclined himself to the 
jury, and began with that silver ringing voice which particu- 
larly distinguished Brandon’s eloquence, and carried with it 
in high stations so majestic and candid a tone of persuasion. 
He pointed out, with a clear brevity, the various points of the 
evidence; he dwelt for a moment on the attempt to cast dis- 
repute upon the testimony of MacGrawler, but called a proper 
attention to the fact that the attempt had been unsupported 
by witnesses or proof. As he proceeded, the impression made 
by the prisoner on the minds of the jury slowly melted away; 
and perhaps, so much do men soften when they behold clearly 
the face of a fellow-man dependent on them for life, it acted 
disadvantageous^ on the interests of Clifford, that during 
the summing up he leaned back in the dock, and prevented 
his countenance from being seen. When the evidence had 
been gone through, the judge concluded thus : — 

“The prisoner, who in his defence (on the principles and 
opinions of which I now forbear to comment) certainly exhib- 
ited the signs of a superior education, and a high though per- 
verted ability, has alluded to the reports circulated by the 
public Press, and leaned some little stress on the various 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


445 


anecdotes tending to his advantage, which he supposes have 
reached your ears. I am by no means willing that the pris- 
oner should be deprived of whatever benefit may be derivable 
from such a source; but it is not in this place, nor at this 
moment, that it can avail him. All you have to consider is 
the evidence before you. All on which ydu have to decide is, 
whether the prisoner be or be not guilty of the robbery of 
which he is charged. You must not waste a thought on what 
redeems or heightens a supposed crime, — you must only de- 
cide on the crime itself. Put away from your minds, I beseech 
you, all that interferes with the main case. Put away also 
from your motives of decision all forethought of other possible 
indictments to which the prisoner has alluded, but with which 
you are necessarily unacquainted. If you doubt the evidence, 
whether of one witness or of all, the prisoner must receive 
from you the benefit of that doubt. If not, you are sworn to 
a solemn oath, which ordains you to forego all minor consid- 
erations, — which compels you to watch narrowly that you be 
not influenced by the infirmities natural to us all, but criminal 
in you, to lean towards the side of a mercy that would be ren- 
dered by your oath a perjury to God, and by your duty as 
impartial citizens a treason to your country. I dismiss you 
to the grave consideration of the important case you have 
heard; and I trust that He to whom all hearts are open and 
all secrets are known, will grant you the temper and the judg- 
ment to form a right decision ! ” 

There was in the majestic aspect and thrilling voice of 
Brandon something which made the commonest form of words 
solemn and impressive; and the hypocrite, aware of this felic- 
ity of manner, generally, as now, added weight to his conclud- 
ing words by a religious allusion or a Scriptural phraseology. 
He ceased; and the jury, recovering the effect of his adjura- 
tion, consulted for a moment among themselves. The foreman 
then, addressing the court on behalf of his fellow-jurors, re* 
quested leave to retire for deliberation. An attendant bailiff 
being sworn in, we read in the journals of the day, which 
noted the divisions of time with that customary scrupulosity 
rendered terrible by the reflection how soon all time and sea- 


446 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


sons may perish for the hero of the scene, that “ it was at 
twenty -five minutes to two that the jury withdrew.” 

Perhaps in the whole course of a criminal trial there is no 
period more awful than that occupied by the deliberation of 
the jury. In the present case the prisoner, as if acutely sensi- 
ble of his situation, remained in the rear of the dock, and 
buried his face in his hands. They who stood near him 
observed, however, that his breast did not seem to swell with 
the convulsive emotion customary to persons in his state, and 
that not even a sigh or agitated movement escaped him. The 
jury had been absent about twenty minutes, when a confused 
noise was heard in the court. The face of the judge turned in 
commanding severity towards the quarter whence it proceeded. 
He perceived a man of a coarse garb and mean appearance en- 
deavouring rudely and violently to push his way through the 
crowd towards the bench, and at the same instant he saw one 
of the officers of the court approaching the disturber of its 
tranquillity with no friendly intent. The man, aware of the 
purpose of the constable, exclaimed with great vehemence, “ I 
vill give this to my lord the judge, blow me if I von’t! ” and 
as he spoke he raised high above his head a soiled scrap of 
paper folded awkwardly in the shape of a letter. The instant 
Brandon’s eye caught the rugged features of the intrusive 
stranger, he motioned with rather less than his usual slow- 
ness of gesture to one of his official satellites. “Bring me 
that paper instantly! ” he whispered. 

The officer bowed and obeyed. The man, who seemed a 
little intoxicated, gave it with a look of ludicrous triumph 
and self-importance. 

“ Stand avay, man ! ” he added to the constable, who now 
laid hand on his collar. “You’ll see vot the judge says to 
that ’ere bit of paper; and so vill the prisoner, poor fellow! ” 

This scene, so unworthy the dignity of the court, attracted 
the notice and (immediately around the intruder) the merri- 
ment of the crowd; and many an eye was directed towards 
Brandon, as with calm gravity he opened the note and glanced 
over the contents. In a large school-boy hand — it was the 
hand of Long Ned — were written these few words: — 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


447 


My Lord Judge, — I make bold to beg you will do all you can 
for the prisoner at the barre, as he is no other than the “ Paul ” I spoke 
to your Worship about. You know what I mean. 

Dummie Dunnaker. 

As he read this note, the judge’s head was observed to 
droop suddenly, as if by a sickness or a v spasm ; but he recov- 
ered himself instantly, and whispering the officer who brought 
him the note, said, “See that that madman be immediately 
removed from the court, and lock him up alone. He is so 
deranged as to be dangerous ! ” 

The officer lost not a moment in seeing the order executed. 
Three stout constables dragged the astounded Dummie from 
the court in an instant, yet the more ruthlessly for his 
ejaculating, — 

“Eh, sirs, what’s this? I tells you I have saved the 
judge’s hown flesh and blood! Yy, now, gently, there; you ’ll 
smart for this, my fine fellow! Never you mind, Paul, my 
’arty; I ’se done you a pure good — ” 

“Silence!” proclaimed the voice of the judge; and that 
voice came forth with so commanding a tone of power that it 
awed Dummie, despite his intoxication. In a moment more, 
and ere he had time to recover, he was without the court. 
During this strange hubbub, which nevertheless scarcely 
lasted above two or three minutes, the prisoner had not 
once lifted his head, nor appeared aroused in any manner 
from his revery; and scarcely had the intruder been with- 
drawn before the jury returned. 

The verdict was, as all had foreseen, “Guilty;” but it was 
coupled with a strong recommendation to mercy. 

The prisoner was then asked, in the usual form, whether 
he had to say anything why sentence of death should not be 
passed against him. 

As these dread words struck upon his ear, slowly the pris- 
oner rose. He directed first towards the jury a brief and keen 
glance, and his eyes then rested full, and with a stern signifi- 
cance, on the face of his judge. 

“My lord,” he began, “I have but one reason to advance 
against the sentence of the law. If you have interest to pre- 


448 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


vent or mitigate it, that reason will, I think, suffice to enlist 
you on my behalf. I said that the first cause of those offences 
against the law which brings me to this bar was the commit- 
ting me to prison on a charge of which I was wholly inno- 
cent! My lord judge, you were the man who accused me of 
that charge, and subjected me to that imprisonment! Look 
at me well, my lord, and you may trace in the countenance of 
the hardened felon you are about to adjudge to death the feat- 
ures of a boy whom, some seven years ago, you accused before 
a London magistrate of the theft of your watch. On the oath 
of a man who has one step on the threshold of death, the 
accusation was unjust. And, fit minister of the laws you 
represent! you, who will now pass my doom, — you were the 
cause of my crimes! My lord, I have done. I am ready to 
add another to the long and dark list of victims who are first 
polluted and then sacrificed by the blindness and the injustice 
of human codes ! ” 

While Clifford spoke, every eye turned from him to the 
judge, and every one was appalled by the ghastly and fearful 
change which had fallen over Brandon’s face. Men said, 
afterwards, that they saw written there, in terrible distinct- 
ness, the characters of death; and there certainly seemed 
something awful and preternatural in the bloodless and hag- 
gard calmness of his proud features. Yet his eye did not 
quail, nor the muscles of his lip quiver; and with even more 
than his wonted loftiness, he met the regard of the prisoner. 
But, as alone conspicuous throughout the motionless and 
breathless crowd the judge and criminal gazed upon each 
other, and as the eyes of the spectators wandered on each, a 
thrilling and electric impression of a powerful likeness be- 
tween the doomed and the doomer, for the first time in the 
trial, struck upon the audience, and increased, though they 
scarcely knew why, the sensation of pain and dread which 
the prisoner’s last words excited. Perhaps it might have 
chiefly arisen from a common expression of fierce emotion 
conquered by an iron and stern character of mind; or perhaps, 
now that the ashy paleness of exhaustion had succeeded the 
excited flush on the prisoner’s face, the similarity of com- 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


449 


plexion thus obtained made the likeness more obvious than 
before; or perhaps the spectators had not hitherto fixed so 
searching, or, if we may so speak, so alternating a gaze upon 
the two. However that be, the resemblance between the 
men, placed as they were in such widely different circum- 
stances, — that resemblance which, as we have hinted, had at 
certain moments occurred startlingly to Lucy, — was plain 
and unavoidably striking: the same the dark hue of their 
complexions; the same the haughty and Roman outline of 
their faces; the same the height of the forehead; the same 
even a displeasing and sarcastic rigidity of mouth, which 
made the most conspicuous feature in Brandon, and which 
was the only point that deteriorated from the singular beauty 
of Clifford. But, above all, the same inflexible, defying, 
stubborn spirit, though in Brandon it assumed the stately 
cast of majesty, and in Clifford it seemed the desperate stern- 
ness of the bravo, stamped itself in both. Though Clifford 
ceased, he did not resume his seat, but stood in the same atti- 
tude as that in which he had reversed the order of things, and 
merged the petitioner in the accuser; and Brandon himself, 
without speaking or moving, continued still to survey him; 
so, with erect fronts and marble countenances, in which what 
was defying and resolute did not altogether quell the mortal 
leaven of pain and dread, they looked as might have looked 
the two men in the Eastern story who had the power of gaz- 
ing each other unto death. 

What at that moment was raging in Brandon's heart, it is 
in vain to guess. He doubted not for a moment that he 
beheld before him his long lost, his anxiously demanded son! 
Every fibre, every corner ojf his complex and gloomy soul, 
that certainly reached, and blasted with a hideous and irre- 
sistible glare. The earliest, perhaps the strongest, though 
often the least acknowledged principle of his mind was the 
desire to rebuild the fallen honours of his house; its last 
scion he now beheld before him, covered with the darkest 
ignominies of the law! He had coveted worldly honours; he 
beheld their legitimate successor in a convicted felon! He 
had garnered the few affections he had spared from the objects 

29 


450 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


of pride and ambition, in his son. That son he was about to 
adjudge to the gibbet and the hangman! Of late he had 
increased the hopes of regaining his lost treasure, even to 
an exultant certainty. Lo! the hopes were accomplished! 
How? With these thoughts warring, in what manner we 
dare not even by an epithet express, within him, we may 
cast one hasty glance on the horror of aggravation they 
endured, when he heard the prisoner accuse him as the 
cause of his present doom, and felt himself at once the mur- 
derer and the judge of his son ! 

Minutes had elapsed since the voice of the prisoner ceased; 
and Brandon now drew forth the black cap. As he placed it 
slowly over his brows, the increasing and corpse-like white- 
ness of his face became more glaringly visible, by the contrast 
which this dread head-gear presented. Twice as he essayed 
to speak his voice failed him, and an indistinct murmur came 
forth from his hueless lips, and died away like a fitful and 
feeble wind. But with the third effort the resolution and long 
self-tyranny of the man conquered, and his voice went clear 
and unfaltering through the crqwd, although the severe sweet- 
ness of its wonted tones was gone, and it sounded strange and 
hollow on the ears that drank it. 

“ Prisoner at the bar ! it has become my duty to announce 
to you the close of your mortal career. You have been accused 
of a daring robbery, and after an impartial trial a jury of your 
countrymen and the laws of your country have decided against 
you. The recommendation to mercy ” (here, only throughout 
his speech, Brandon gasped convulsively for breath) “so hu- 
manely added by the jury, shall be forwarded to the supreme 
power; but I cannot flatter you with much hope of its suc- 
cess.” (The lawyers looked with some surprise at each other; 
they had expected a far more unqualified mandate, to abjure 
all hope from the jury’s recommendation.) “Prisoner, for 
the opinions you have expressed, you are now only answer- 
able to your God; I forbear to arraign them. For the charge 
you have made against me, whether true or false, and for the 
anguish it has given me, may you find pardon at another tri- 
bunal ! It remains for me only — under a reserve too slight, 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


451 


as I have said, to afford yon a fair promise of hope — only 
to — to” (all eyes were on Brandon; he felt it, exerted himself 
for a last effort, and proceeded) — “ to pronounce on yon the 
sharp sentence of the law ! It is, that you be taken back to 
the prison whence you came, and thence (when the supreme 
authority shall appoint) to the place of execution, to be there 
hanged by the neck till you are dead; and the Lord God 
Almighty have mercy on your soul ! ” 

With this address concluded that eventful trial; and while 
the crowd, in rushing and noisy tumult, bore towards the door, 
Brandon, concealing to the last with a Spartan bravery the 
anguish which was gnawing at his entrails, retired from the 
awful pageant. For the next half-hour he was locked up with 
the strange intruder on the proceedings of the court. At the 
end of that time the stranger was dismissed; and in about 
double the same period Brandon’s servant re-admitted him, 
accompanied by another man, with a slouched hat and in a 
carman’s frock. The reader need not be told that the new 
comer was the friendly Ned, whose testimony was indeed a 
valuable corroborative to Dummie’s, and whose regard for 
Clifford, aided by an appetite for rewards, had induced him 

to venture to the town of , although he tarried concealed 

in a safe suburb, until reassured by a written promise from 
Brandon of safety to his person, and, a sum for which we 
might almost doubt whether he would not have consented (so 
long had he been mistaking means for an end) to be hanged 
himself. Brandon listened to the details of these confeder- 
ates; and when they had finished, he addressed them thus: — 
“I have heard you, and 'am convinced you are liars and 
impostors. There is the money I promised you” (throwing 
down a pocket-book), — “take it; and, hark you, if ever you 
dare whisper, ay, but a breath of the atrocious lie you have 
now forged, be sure I will have you dragged from the recess 
or nook of infamy in which you may hide your heads, and 
hanged for the crimes you have already committed. I am not 
the man to break my word. Begone ! quit this town instantly ! 
If in two hours hence you are found here, your blood be on 
your own heads ! Begone, I say ! ” 


452 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


These words, aided by a countenance well adapted at all 
times to expressions of a menacing and ruthless character, at 
once astounded and appalled the accomplices. They left the 
room in hasty confusion; and Brandon, now alone, walked 
with uneven steps (the alarming weakness and vacillation of 
which he did not himself feel) to and fro the apartment. The 
hell of his breast was stamped upon his features, but he 
uttered only one thought aloud, — 

“ I may, — yes, yes, — I may yet conceal this disgrace to 
my name ! ” 

His servant tapped at the door to say that the carriage was 
ready, and that Lord Mauleverer had bid him remind his 
master that they dined punctually at the hour appointed. 

“ I am coming ! ” said Brandon, with a slow and startling 
emphasis on each word. But he first sat down and wrote a 
letter to the official quarter, strongly aiding the recommenda- 
tion of the jury; and we may conceive how pride clung to him 
to the last, when he urged the substitution for death of trans- 
portation for life ! As soon as he had sealed this letter, he 
summoned an express, gave his orders coolly and distinctly, 
and attempted with his usual stateliness of step to walk 
through a long passage which led to the outer door. He 
found himself fail. “ Come hither, ” he said to his servant, 
“ give me your arm ! ” 

All Brandon’s domestics, save the one left with Lucy, 
stood in awe of him ; and it was with some hesitation that 
his servant ventured to inquire if his master felt well. 

Brandon looked at him, but made no reply . He entered 
his carriage with slight difficulty, and telling the coachman to 
drive as fast as possible, pulled down (a general custom with 
him) all the blinds of the windows. 

Meanwhile Lord Mauleverer, with six friends, was impa- 
tiently awaiting the arrival of the seventh guest. 

“ Our august friend tarries ! ” quoth the Bishop of , 

with his hands folded across his capacious stomach. “ I fear 
the turbot your lordship spoke of may not be the better for 
the length of the trial.” 

“ Poor fellow ! ” said the Earl of 


-, slightly yawning. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


453 


“Whom do you mean?” asked Lord Mauleverer, with a 
smile, — “the bishop, the judge, or the turbot?” 

“ Not one of the three, Mauleverer, — I spoke of the 
prisoner.” 

“Ah, the fine dog! I forgot him,” said Mauleverer. “Really, 
now you mention him, I must confess that he inspires me with 
great compassion; but, indeed, it is very wrong in him to 
keep the judge so long ! ” 

“Those hardened wretches have such a great deal to say,” 
mumbled the bishop, sourly. 

“ True ! ” said Mauleverer ; “ a religious rogue would have 
had some bowels for the state of the church esurient.” 

“Is it really true, Mauleverer,” asked the Earl of , 

“that Brandon is to succeed ?” 

“So I hear,” said Mauleverer. “Heavens, how hungry I 
am! ” 

A groan from the bishop echoed the complaint. 

“ I suppose it would be against all decorum to sit down to 
dinner without him?” said Lord . 

“Why, really, I fear so,” returned Mauleverer. “But our 
health — our health is at stake; we will only wait five min- 
utes more. By Jove, there’s the carriage! I beg your par- 
don for my heathen oath, my lord bishop.” 

“I forgive you! ” said the good bishop, smiling. 

The party thus engaged in colloquy were stationed at a 
window opening on the gravel road, along which the judge’s 
carriage was now seen rapidly approaching; this window was 
but a few yards from the porch, and had been partially opened 
for the better reconnoitring the approach of the expected 
guest. 

“He keeps the blinds down still! Absence of mind, or 
shame at unpunctuality, — which is the cause, Mauleverer?” 
said one of the party. 

“Not shame, I fear!” answered Mauleverer. “Even the 
indecent immorality of delaying our dinner could scarcely 
bring a blush to the parchment skin of my learned friend.” 

Here the carriage stopped at the porch ; the carriage door 
was opened. 


454 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“There seems a strange delay,” said Mauleverer, peevishly. 
“ Why does not he get out? ” 

As he spoke, a murmur among the attendants, who appeared 
somewhat strangely to crowd around the carriage, smote the 
ears of the party. 

“What do they say, —what?” said Mauleverer, putting 
his hand to his ear. 

The bishop answered hastily; and Mauleverer, as he heard 
the reply, forgot for once his susceptibility to cold, and hur- 
ried out to the carriage door. His guests followed. 

They found Brandon leaning against the farther corner of 
the carriage, — a corpse. One hand held the check-string, as 
if he had endeavoured involuntarily but ineffectually to pull 
it. The right side of his face was partially distorted, as by 
convulsion or paralysis ; but not sufficiently so to destroy that 
remarkable expression of loftiness and severity which had 
characterized the features in life. At the same time the 
distortion which had drawn up on one side the muscles of 
the mouth had deepened into a startling broadness the half 
sneer of derision that usually lurked around the lower part of 
his face. Thus unwitnessed and abrupt had been the disunion 
of the clay and spirit of a man who, if he passed through life 
a bold, scheming, stubborn, unwavering hypocrite, was not 
without something high even amidst his baseness, his selfish- 
ness, and his vices; who seemed less to have loved sin than 
by some strange perversion of reason to have disdained virtue, 
and who, by a solemn and awful suddenness of fate (for who 
shall venture to indicate the judgment of the arch and unseen 
Providence, even when it appears to mortal eye the least 
obscured?), won the dreams, the objects, the triumphs of 
hope, to be blasted by them at the moment of acquisition ! 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


455 


CHAPTER XXXVI., 

AND LAST. 

Subtle, Surly, — Mammon, Dol, 

Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, — all 
With whom I traded. 

The Alchemist. 

As when some rural citizen — retired for a fleeting holiday, 
far from the cares of the world strepitumque Romce, 1 to the 
sweet shades of Pentonville or the remoter plains of Clapham 
— conducts some delighted visitor over the intricacies of that 
Daedalian masterpiece which he is pleased to call his laby- 
rinth or maze, — now smiling furtively at his guest’s per- 
plexity, now listening with calm superiority to his futile and 
erring conjectures, now maliciously accompanying him through 
a flattering path in which the baffled adventurer is suddenly 
checked by the blank features of a thoroughfareless hedge, 
now trembling as he sees the guest stumbling unawares into 
the right track, and now relieved as he beholds him after a 
pause of deliberation wind into the wrong, — even so, 0 
pleasant reader! doth the sage novelist conduct thee through 
the labyrinth of his tale, amusing himself with thy self- 
deceits, and spinning forth, in prolix pleasure, the quiet 
yarn of his entertainment from the involutions which occa- 
sion thy fretting eagerness and perplexity. But as when, 
thanks to the host’s good-nature or fatigue, the mystery is 
once unravelled, and the guest permitted to penetrate even 
into the concealed end of the leafy maze, the honest cit, sat- 
isfied with the pleasant pains he has already bestowed upon 
his visitor, puts him not to the labour of retracing the steps 
he hath so erratically trod, but leads him in three strides, and 
through a simpler path, at once to the mouth of the maze, 
1 “ And the roar of Rome.” 


456 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


and dismisseth him elsewhere for entertainment; even so will 
the prudent narrator, when the intricacies of his plot are once 
unfolded, occasion no stale and profitless delays to his wearied 
reader, but conduct him, with as much brevity as convenient, 
without the labyrinth which has ceased to retain the interest 
of a secret. 

We shall therefore, in pursuance of the cit’s policy, relate 
as rapidly as possible that part of our narrative which yet 
remains untold. On Brandon’s person was found the paper 
which had contained so fatal an intelligence of his son ; and 
when brought to Lord Mauleverer, the words struck that per- 
son (who knew Brandon had been in search of his lost son, 
whom we have seen that he had been taught however to sup- 
pose illegitimate, though it is probable that many doubts 
whether he had not been deceived must have occurred to his 
natural sagacity) as sufficiently important to be worth an 
inquiry after the writer. Dummie was easily found, for he 
had not yet turned his back on the town when the news of 
the judge’s sudden death was brought back to it; and taking 
advantage of that circumstance, the friendly Dunnaker re- 
mained altogether in the town (albeit his long companion 
deserted it as hastily as might be), and whiled the time by 
presenting himself at the jail, and after some ineffectual 
efforts winning his way to Clifford. Easily tracked by the 
name he had given to the governor of the jail, he was con- 
ducted the same day to Lord Mauleverer; and his narrative, 
confused as it was, and proceeding even from so suspicious 
a quarter, thrilled those digestive organs, which in Maul- 
everer stood proxy for a heart, with feelings as much resem- 
bling awe and horror as our good peer was capable of 
experiencing. Already shocked from his worldly philoso- 
phy of indifference by the death of Brandon, he was more 
susceptible to a remorseful and salutary impression at this 
moment than he might have been at any other; and he could 
not, without some twinges of conscience, think of the ruin he 
had brought on the mother of the being he had but just pros- 
ecuted to the death. He dismissed Dummie, and after a little 
consideration he ordered his carriage, and leaving the funeral 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


457 


preparations for his friend to the care of his man of business, 
he set off for London, and the house, in particular, of the 
Secretary of the Home Department. We would not willingly 
wrong the noble penitent ; but we venture a suspicion that he 
might not have preferred a personal application for mercy to 
the prisoner to a written one, had he not felt certain unpleas- 
ant qualms in remaining in a country-house overshadowed 
by ceremonies so gloomy as those of death. The letter of 
Brandon and the application of Mauleverer obtained for 
Clifford a relaxation of his sentence. He was left for per- 
petual transportation. A ship was already about to sail; and 
Mauleverer, content with having saved his life, was by no 
means anxious that his departure from the country should be 
saddled with any superfluous delay. 

Meanwhile the first rumour that reached London respecting 
Brandon’s fate was that he had been found in a fit, and was 
lying dangerously ill at Mauleverer’s; and before the second 
and more fatally sure report arrived, Lucy had gathered from 
the visible dismay of Barlow, whom she anxiously cross- 
questioned, and who, really loving his master, was easily 
affected into communication, the first and more flattering 
intelligence. To Barlow’s secret delight, she insisted in- 
stantly on setting off to the supposed sick man; and accom- 
panied by Barlow and her woman, the affectionate girl 
hastened to Mauleverer’s house on the evening after the 
day the earl left it. Lucy had not proceeded far before 
Barlow learned, from the gossip of the road, the real state 
of the case. Indeed, it was at the first stage that with a 
mournful countenance he approached the door of the carriage, 
and announcing the inutility of proceeding farther, begged of 
Lucy to turn back. So soon as Miss Brandon had overcome 
the first shock which this intelligence gave her, she said with 
calmness, — 

“ Well, Barlow, if it be so, we have still a duty to perform. 
Tell the postboys to drive on ! ” 

“ Indeed, madam, I cannot see what use it can be fretting 
yourself, — and you so poorly. If you will let me go, I will 
see every attention paid to the remains of my poor master. ” 


458 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


“When my father lay dead,” said Lucy, with a grave and 
sad sternness in her manner, “ he who is now no more sent no 
proxy to perform the last duties of a brother; neither will I 
send one to discharge those of a niece, and prove that I have 
forgotten the gratitude of a daughter. Drive on ! ” 

We have said that there were times when a spirit was 
stricken from Lucy little common to her in general ; and now 
the command of her uncle sat upon her brow. On sped the 
horses, and for several minutes Lucy remained silent. Her 
woman did not dare to speak. At length Miss Brandon 
turned, and, covering her face with her hands, burst into 
tears so violent that they alarmed her attendant even more 
than her previous stillness. “ My poor, poor uncle ! ” she 
sobbed ; and those were all her words. 

We must pass over Lucy’s arrival at Lord Mauleverer’s 
house; we must pass over the weary days which elapsed till 
that unconscious body was consigned to dust with which, 
could it have retained yet one spark of its haughty spirit, it 
would have refused to blend its atoms. She had loved the 
deceased incomparably beyond his merits, and resisting all 
remonstrance to the contrary and all the forms of ordinary 
custom, she witnessed herself the dreary ceremony which 
bequeathed the human remains of William Brandon to repose 
and to the worm. On that same day Clifford received the 
mitigation of his sentence, and on that day another trial 
awaited Lucy. We think briefly to convey to the reader 
what that scene was ; we need only observe that Dummie 
Dunnaker, decoyed by his great love for little Paul, whom 
he delightedly said he found not the least “ stuck up by his 
great fame and helewation,” still lingered in the town, and 
was not only aware of the relationship of the cousins, but had 

gleaned from Long Ned, as they journeyed down to , the 

affection entertained by Clifford for Lucy. Of the manner in 
which the communication reached Lucy, we need not speak; 
suffice it to say, that on the day in which she had performed 
the last duty to her uncle, she learned for the first time her 
lover’s situation. 

On that evening, in the convict’s cell, the cousins met. 


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v/l ,:n!v/ML rfioy'-i .[ford'll 7V 


. . •. \\ ••1-1 V - 

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Otf that evening , in the convict's cell, the cousins 
met” 


Etching by W. H. W. Biclenell. - From drawing by 
W. L. Taylor. 













PAUL CLIFFORD. 


459 


Their conference was low, for the jailer stood within hear- 
ing; and it was broken by Lucy’s convulsive sobs. But the 
voice of one whose iron nerves were not unworthy of the off- 
spring of William Brandon, was clear and audible to her ear, 
even though uttered in a whisper that scarcely stirred his lips. 
It seemed as if Lucy, smitten to the inmost heart by the gen- 
erosity with which her lover had torn himself from her at the 
time that her wealth might have raised him in any other coun- 
try far above the perils and the crimes of his career in this; 
perceiving now, for the first time, and in all their force, the 
causes of his mysterious conduct; melted by their relation- 
ship, and forgetting herself utterly in the desolation and dark 
situation in which she beheld one who, whatever his crimes, 
had not been criminal towards her; — it seemed as if, carried 
away by these emotions, she had yielded altogether to the 
fondness and devotion of her nature, — that she had wished 
to leave home and friends and fortune, and share with him 
his punishment and his shame. 

“ Why,” she faltered, — “ why — why not? We are all that 
is left to each other in the world! Your father and mine were 
brothers ; let me be to you as a sister. What is there left for 
me, here? Not one being whom I love, or who cares for me, 
— not one! ” 

It was then that Clifford summoned all his courage, as he 
answered. Perhaps, now that he felt (though here his knowl- 
edge was necessarily confused and imperfect) his birth was 
not unequal to hers ; now that he read, or believed he read, 
in her wan cheek and attenuated frame that desertion to her 
was death, and that generosity and self-sacrifice had become 
too late, — perhaps these thoughts, concurring with a love in 
himself beyond all words, and a love in her which it was 
above humanity to resist, altogether conquered and subdued 
him. Yet, as we have said, his voice breathed calmly in her 
ear; and his eye only, which brightened with a steady and 
resolute hope, betrayed his mind. “Live, then!” said he, as 
he concluded. “My sister, my mistress, my bride, live! In 
one year from this day — I repeat — I promise it thee ! ” 

The interview was over, and Lucy returned home with a 


460 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


firm step. She was on foot. The rain fell in torrents, yet 
even in her precarious state her health suffered not; and 
when within a week from that time she read that Clifford had 
departed to the bourne of his punishment, she read the news 
with a steady eye and a lip that, if it grew paler, did not 
quiver. 

Shortly after that time Miss Brandon departed to an ob- 
scure town by the seaside; and there, refusing all society, 
she continued to reside. As the birth of Clifford was known 
but to few, and his legitimacy was unsuspected by all except, 
perhaps, by Mauleverer, Lucy succeeded to the great wealth 
of her uncle; and this circumstance made her more than ever 
an object of attraction in the eyes of her poble adorer. Find- 
ing himself unable to see her, he wrote to her more than one 
moving epistle ; but as Lucy continued inflexible, he at length, 
disgusted by her want of taste, ceased his pursuit, and resigned 
himself to the continued sterility of unwedded life. As the 
months waned, Miss Brandon seemed to grow weary of her 
retreat; and immediately on attaining her majority, which she 
did about eight months after Brandon’s death, she trans- 
ferred the bulk of her wealth to France, where it was under- 
stood (for it was impossible that rumour should sleep upon an 
heiress and a beauty) that she intended in future to reside. 
Even Warlock (that spell to the proud heart of her uncle) she 
ceased to retain. It was offered to the nearest relation of the 
family at a sum which he did not hesitate to close with; and 
by the common vicissitudes of Fortune, the estate of the 
ancient Brandons has now, we perceive by a weekly journal, 
just passed into the hands of a wealthy alderman. 

It was nearly a year since Brandon’s death when a letter 
bearing a foreign postmark came to Lucy. From that time 
her spirits — which before, though subject to fits of abstrac- 
tion, had been even and subdued, not sad — rose into all the 
cheerfulness and vivacity of her earliest youth. She busied 
herself actively in preparations for her departure from this 
country; and at length the day was fixed, and the vessel was 
engaged. Every day till that one, did Lucy walk to the sea- 
side, and ascending the highest cliff, spend hours, till the 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


461 


evening closed, in watching, with seemingly idle gaze, the 
vessels that interspersed the sea; and "with every day her 
health seemed to strengthen, and the soft and lucid colour 
she had once worn, to rebloom upon her cheek. 

Previous to her departure Mi^ss Brandon dismissed her 
servants, and only engaged one female, a foreigner, to accom- 
pany her. A certain tone of quiet command, formerly un- 
known to her, characterized these measures, so daringly 
independent for one of her sex and age. The day arrived, 
— it was the anniversary of her last interview with Clifford. 
On entering the vessel it was observed that she trembled 
violently, and that her face was as pale as death. A stranger, 
who had stood aloof wrapped in his cloak, darted forward to 
assist her; that was the last which her discarded and weeping 
servants beheld of her from the pier where they stood to gaze. 

Nothing more in this country was ever known of the fate 
of Lucy Brandon; and as her circle of acquaintances was 
narrow, and interest in her fate existed vividly in none save 
a few humble breasts, conjecture was never keenly awakened, 
and soon cooled into forgetfulness. If it favoured, after the 
lapse of years, any one notion more than another, it was that 
she had perished among the victims of the French Revolution. 

Meanwhile let us glance over the destinies of our more sub- 
ordinate acquaintances. 

Augustus Tomlinson, on parting from Long Ned, had suc- 
ceeded in reaching Calais; and after a rapid tour through the 
Continent, he ultimately betook himself to a certain literary 
city in Germany, where he became distinguished for his meta- 
physical acumen, and opened a school of morals on the Grecian 
model, taught in the French tongue. He managed, by the pat- 
ronage he received and the pupils he enlightened, to obtain a 
very decent income; and as he wrote a folio against Locke, 
proved that men had innate feelings, and affirmed that we 
should refer everything not to reason, but to the sentiments 
of the soul, he became greatly respected for his extraordinary 
virtue. Some little discoveries were made after his death, 
which perhaps would have somewhat diminished the general 


462 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


odour of his sanctity, had not the admirers of his school care- 
fully hushed up the matter, probably out of respect for the 
“ sentiments of the soul ! ” 

Pepper, whom the police did not so anxiously desire to 
destroy as they did his two companions, might have managed, 
perhaps many years longer, to graze upon the public commons, 
had not a letter, written somewhat imprudently, fallen into 
wrong hands. This, though after creating a certain stir it 
apparently died away, lived in the memory of the police, and 
finally conspired, with various peccadilloes, to produce his 
downfall. He was seized, tried, and sentenced to seven 
years’ transportation. He so advantageously employed his 
time at Botany Bay, and arranged things there so comfortably 
to himself, that at the expiration of his sentence he refused 
to return home. He made an excellent match, built himself 
an excellent house, and remained in “the land of the blest” 
to the end of his days, noted to the last for the redundance 
of his hair and a certain ferocious coxcombry of aspect. 

As for Fighting Attie and Gentleman George, for Scarlet 
Jem and for Old Bags, we confess ourselves destitute of any 
certain information of their latter ends. We can only add, 
with regard to Fighting Attie, “Good luck be with him 
wherever he goes ! ” and for mine host of the Jolly Angler, 
that, though we have not the physical constitution to quaff “a 
bumper of blue ruin, ” we shall be very happy, over any toler- 
able wine and in company with any agreeable convivialist, to 
bear our part in the polished chorus of — 

“ Here ’s to Gentleman George, God bless him ! ” 

Mrs. Lobkins departed this life like a lamb; and Dummie 
Dunnaker obtained a license to carry on the business at 
Thames Court. He boasted, to the last, of his acquaintance 
with the great Captain Lovett, and of the affability with 
which that distinguished personage treated him. Stories he 
had, too, about Judge Brandon, but no one believed a syllable 
of them; and Dummie, indignant at the disbelief, increased, 
out of vehemence, the marvel of the stories, so that, at length, 
what was added almost swallowed up what was original, and 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 463 

Dummie himself might have been puzzled to satisfy his own 
conscience as to what was false and what was true. 

The erudite Peter MacGrawler, returning to Scotland, dis- 
appeared by the road. A person singularly resembling the 
sage was afterward seen at Carlisle, where he discharged the 
useful and praiseworthy duties of Jack Ketch. But whether 
or not this respectable functionary was our identical Simon 
Pure, our ex-editor of “The Asinseum,” we will not take upon 
ourselves to assert. 

Lord Mauleverer, finally resolving on a single life, passed 
the remainder of his years in indolent tranquillity. When 
he died, the newspapers asserted that his Majesty was deeply 
affected by the loss of so old and valued a friend. His furni- 
ture and wines sold remarkably high; and a Great Man, his 
particular intimate,' who purchased his books, startled to find, 
by pencil marks, that the noble deceased had read some of 
them, exclaimed, not altogether without truth, — 

“ Ah ! Mauleverer might have been a deuced clever fellow 
— if he had liked it! ” 

The earl was accustomed to show as a curiosity a ring of 
great value, which he had received in rather a singular man- 
ner. One morning a packet was brought him which he found 
to contain a sum of money, the ring mentioned, and a letter 
from the notorious Lovett, in which that person in begging to 
return his lordship the sums of which he had twice assisted 
to rob him, thanked him, with earnest warmth, for the con- 
sideration testified towards him in not revealing his identity 
with Captain Clifford; and Ventured, as a slight testimony of 
respect, to inclose the aforesaid ring with the sum returned. 

About the time Mauleverer received this curious packet, 
several anecdotes of a similar nature appeared in the public 
journals ; and it seemed that Lovett had acted upon a general 
principle of restitution, — not always, it must be allowed, the 
offspring of a robber’s repentance. While the idle were mar- 
velling at these anecdotes, came the tardy news that Lovett, 
after a single month’s sojourn at his place of condemnation, 
had. in the most daring and singular manner, effected his 
escape. Whether, in his progress up the country, he had 


464 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


been starved or slain by the natives, or whether, more fortu- 
nate, he had ultimately found the means of crossing seas, was 
as yet unknown. There ended the adventures of the gal- 
lant robber; and thus, by a strange coincidence, the same 
mystery which wrapped the fate of Lucy involved also that 
of her lover. And here, kind reader, might we drop the cur- 
tain on our closing scene, did we not think it might please 
thee to hold it up yet one moment, and give thee another 
view of the world behind. 

In a certain town of that Great Country where shoes are 
imperfectly polished 1 and opinions are not prosecuted, there 
resided, twenty years after the date of Lucy Brandon’s de- 
parture from England, a man held in high and universal 
respect, not only for the rectitude of his conduct, but for 
the energies of his mind, and the purposes to which they 
were directed. If you asked who cultivated that waste, the 
answer was, “ Clifford ! ” who procured the establishment of 
that hospital, “ Clifford! ” who obtained the redress of such a 
public grievance, “ Clifford ! ” who struggled for and won 
such a popular benefit, “ Clifford ! ” In the gentler part of his 
projects and his undertakings — in that part, above all, which 
concerned the sick or the necessitous — this useful citizen was 
seconded, or rather excelled, by a being over whose surpass- 
ing loveliness Time seemed to have flown with a gentle and 
charming wing. There was something remarkable and touch- 
ing in the love which this couple (for the woman w.e refer to 
was Clifford’s wife) bore to each other; like the plant on the 
plains of Hebron, the time which brought to that love an 
additional strength brought to it also a softer and a fresher 
verdure. Although their present neighbours were unac- 
quainted with the events of their earlier life previous to 

their settlement at , it was known that they had been 

wealthy at the time they first came to reside there, and that, 
by a series of fatalities, they had lost all. But Clifford had 
borne up manfully against fortune; and in a new country, 
where men who prefer labour to dependence cannot easily 
starve, he had been enabled to toil upward through the severe 
1 See Captain Hall’s late work on America. 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


465 


stages of poverty and hardship with an honesty and vigour 
of character which won him, perhaps, a more hearty esteem 
for every successive effort than the display of his lost riches 
might ever have acquired him. His labours and his abilities 
obtained gradual but sure success; and he now enjoyed the 
blessings of a competence earned with the most scrupulous 
integrity, and spent with the most kindly benevolence. A 
trace of the trials they had passed through was discernible in 
each ; those trials had stolen the rose from the wife’s cheek, 
and had sown untimely wrinkles in the broad brow of Clifford. 
There were moments, too, but they were only moments, when 
the latter sank from his wonted elastic and healthful cheer- 
fulness of mind into a gloomy and abstracted revery; but 
these moments the wife watched with a jealous and fond 
anxiety, and one sound of her sweet voice had the power to 
dispel their influence; and when Clifford raised his eyes, and 
glanced from her tender smile around his happy home and 
his growing children, or beheld through the very windows of 
his room the public benefits he had created, something of 
pride and gladness glowed on his countenance, and he said, 
though with glistening eyes and subdued voice, as his looks 
returned once more to his wife, “ I owe these to thee ! ” 

One trait of mind especially characterized Clifford, — indul- 
gence to the faults of others. “Circumstances make guilt,” 
he was wont to say ; “ let us endeavour to correct the circum- 
stances, before we rail against the guilt!” His children 
promised to tread in the same useful and honourable path 
that he trod himself. Happy was considered that family 
which had the hope to ally itself with his. 

Such was the after-fate of Clifford and Lucy. Who will 
condemn us for preferring the moral of that fate to the moral 
which is extorted from the gibbet and the hulks, — which 
makes scarecrows, not beacons; terrifies our weakness, not 
warms our reason. Who does not allow that it is better to 
repair than to perish, — better, too, to atone as the citizen 
than to repent as the hermit? Oh, John Wilkes, Alderman 
of London, and Drawcansir of Liberty, your life was not an 

30 


466 


PAUL CLIFFORD. 


iota too perfect, — your patriotism might have been infinitely 
purer, your morals would have admitted indefinite amend- 
ment, you are no great favourite with us or with the rest of 
the world, — but you said one excellent thing, for which we 
look on you with benevolence, nay, almost with respect. We 
scarcely know whether to smile at its wit or to sigh at its 
wisdom. Mark this truth, all ye gentlemen of England who 
would make law as the Romans made fasces, — a bundle of 
rods with an axe in the middle, — mark it, and remember! 
long may it live, allied with hope in ourselves, but with grat- 
itude in our children, — long after the book which it now 
“adorns ” and “points ” has gone to its dusty slumber, — long, 
long after the feverish hand which now writes it down can 
defend or enforce it no more: “The very worst use to 

WHICH YOU CAN PUT A MAN IS TO HANG HIM!” 


NOTE. 


Page 462. 


Tn the second edition of this novel there were here inserted two “char- 
acters ” of “ Fighting Attie ” and “ Gentleman George,” omitted in the 
subsequent edition published by Mr. Bentley in the “ Standard Novels.” 
At the request of some admirers of those eminent personages, who con- 
sidered the biographical sketches referred to impartial in themselves, 
and contributing to the completeness of the design for which men so 
illustrious were introduced, they are here retained, though in the more 
honourable form of a separate and supplementary notice. 


FIGHTING ATTIE. 

When he dies, the road will have lost a great man, whose foot was 
rarely out of his stirrup, and whose clear head guided a bold hand. He 
carried common- sense to its perfection, and he made the straight path the 
sublimest. His words were few, his actions were many. He was the 
Spartan of Tobyinen, and laconism was the short soul of his professional 
legislation ! - 

Whatever way you view him, you see those properties of mind which 
command fortune; few thoughts not confusing each other, — simple 
elements, and bold. His character in action may be summed in two 
phrases, — ‘‘a fact seized, and a stroke made.” Had his intellect been 
more luxurious, his resolution might have been less hardy; and his 
hardiness made his greatness. He was one of those who shine but in 
action, — chimneys (to adapt the simile of Sir Thomas More) that seem 
useless till you light your fire. So in calm moments you dreamed not 
of his utility, and only on the road you were struck dumb with the out- 
breaking of his genius. Whatever situation he was called to, you found 
in him what you looked for in vain in others; for his strong sense gave 
to Attie what long experience ought, but often fails, to give to its pos* 


468 


NOTE. 


sessors. His energy triumphed over the sense of novel circumstance, and 
he broke in a moment through the cobwebs which entangled lesser 
natures for years. His eye saw a final result, and disregarded the detail. 
He robbed his man without chicanery ; and took his purse by applying 
for it rather than scheming. If his enemies wish to detract from his 
merit, — a merit great, dazzling, and yet solid, — they may, perhaps, 
say that his genius fitted him better to continue exploits than to devise 
them; and thus that, besides the renown which he may justly claim, he 
often wholly engrossed that fame which should have been shared by 
others: he took up the enterprise where it ceased at Labour, and carried 
it onwards, where it was rewarded with Glory. Even this charge proves 
a new merit of address, and lessens not the merit less complicated we 
have allowed him before. The fame he has acquired may excite our 

emulation ; the envy he has not appeased may console us for obscurity. 

% 

’A fi<p\ S’ avQpd)- 
i tcov (f pealv a/xirAaKtai 
’A vap.Qp.aTOi Kpe/xavTcu. 

T ovto S’ a.p6.x avov *vp*iv 
°0 ti vvv, Kal iv reAev- 
ra (pcprarov auSpl rvx^v. 

Pind. Olymp. vii. 1, 43-48. 1 


GENTLEMAN GEORGE. 

For thee, Gentleman George, for thee, what conclusive valediction 
remains ? Alas ! since we began the strange and mumming scene 
wherein first thou wert introduced, the grim foe hath knocked thrice at 
thy gates ; and now, as we write , 2 thou art departed thence, — thou art 
no more ! A new lord presides in thine easy-chair, a new voice rings 
from thy merry board, — thou art forgotten ! thou art already, like these 
pages, a tale that is told to a memory that retainetli not ! Where are 
thy quips and cranks ; where thy stately coxcombries and thy regal 
gauds? Thine house and thy pagoda, thy Gothic chimney and thy 
Chinese sign-post, — these yet ask the concluding hand. Thy hand is 

1 Thus, not too vigorously, translated by Mr. West, — 

“ But wrapped in error is the human mind, 

And human bliss is ever insecure* 

Know we what fortune shall remain behind ? 

Know we how long the present shall endure “? ” 


2 In 1830. 


NOTE. 


469 


cold; their completion, and the enjoyment the completion yields, are for 
another ! Thou sowest, and thy follower reaps ; thou huildest, thy suc- 
cessor holds ; thou plantest, and thine heir sits beneath the shadow of 
thy trees, — 

“ Neque harum, quas colis, arborum 
Te, prseter invisas cupressos, 

Ulla brevem dominum sequetur ! ” 1 


At this moment thy life, — for thou wert a Great Man to thine order, 
and they have added thy biography to that of Abershaw and Sheppard, 
— thy life is before us. What a homily in its events ! Gayly didst thou 
laugh into thy youth, and run through the courses of thy manhood. 
Wit sat at thy table, and Genius was thy comrade. Beauty was thy 
handmaid; and Frivolity played around thee, — a buffoon that thou 
didst ridicule, and ridiculing enjoy ! Who among us can look back to 
thy brilliant era, and not sigh to think that the wonderful men who sur- 
rounded thee, and amidst whom thou wert a centre and a nucleus, are for 
him but the things of history, and the phantoms of a bodiless tradition? 
Those brilliant suppers, glittering with beauty, the memory of which 
makes one spot (yet inherited by Bachelor Bill) a haunted and a fairy 
ground ; all who gathered to that Armida’s circle, — the Grammonts and 
the Beauvilliers and the Rochefoucaulds of England and the Road, — who 
does not feel that to have seen these, though but as Gil Bias saw the 
festivities of his actors, from the sideboard and behind the chair, would 
have been a triumph for the earthlier feelings of his old age to recall ? 
What, then, must it have been to have seen them as thou didst see, — 
thou, the deceased and the forgotten ! — seen them from the height of 
thy youth and pow T er and rank (for early wert thou keeper to a public), 
and reckless spirits, and lusty capacities of joy ? What pleasures where 
sense lavished its uncounted varieties? What revellings where wine 
was the least excitement ? 

Let the scene shift. How stirring is the change ! Triumph and 
glitter and conquest! For thy public was a public of renown ; thither 
came the Warriors of the Ring, — the Heroes of the Cross, — and 
thou, their patron, wert elevated on their fame ! “ Principes pro victo- 

ria pugnant, comites pro principe .” 2 What visions sweep across us ! 
What glories didst thou witness ! Over what conquests didst thou pre- 
side ! The mightiest epoch, the most wonderful events which the world, 

1 " Nor will any of these trees thou didst cultivate follow thee, the short- 
lived lord, save the hateful Cyprus.” 

2 “ Chiefs for the victory fight, — for chiefs the soldiers.” 


470 


NOTE. 


thy world, ever knew, — of these was it not indeed, and dazzlingly 
thine, — 

u To share the triumph and partake the gale ” ? 

Let the scene shift. Manhood is touched by age; but Lust is 
11 heeled ” by Luxury, and Pomp is the heir of Pleasure ; gewgaws and 
gaud, instead of glory, surround, rejoice, and Hatter thee to the last. 
There rise thy buildings : there lie, secret but gorgeous, the tabernacles 
of thine ease ; and the earnings of thy friends, and the riches of the 
people whom they plunder, are waters to thine imperial whirlpool. 
Thou art lapped in ease, as is a silkworm; and profusion flows from thy 
high and unseen asylum as the rain poureth from a cloud. Much didst 
thou do to beautify chimney-tops, much to adorn the snuggeries where 
thou didst dwell. Thieving with thee took a substantial shape ; and 
the robberies of the public passed into a metempsychosis of mortar, and 
became public-houses. So there and thus, building and planning, didst 
thou spin out thy latter yarn, till Death came upon thee ; and when we 
looked around, lo ! thy brother was on thy hearth. And thy parasites 
and thy comrades and thine ancient pals and thy portly blowens, they 
made a murmur, and they packed up their goods ; but they turned ere 
they departed, and they would have worshipped thy brother as they 
worshipped thee, — but he would not ! And thy sign-post is gone and 
mouldered already; and to the Jolly Angler has succeeded the Jolly 
Tar ! And thy picture is disappearing fast from the print-shops, and 
thy name from the mouths of men ! And thy brother, whom no one 
praised while thou didst live, is on a steeple of panegyric built above 
the churchyard that contains thy grave. 0 shifting and volatile hearts 
of men! Who would be keeper of a public ? Who dispense the wine 
and the juices that gladden, when the moment the pulse of the hand 
ceases, the wine and the juices are forgotten ? 

To History, — for thy name will be preserved in that record which, 
whether it be the calendar of Newgate or of nations, telleth us alike how 
men suffer and sin and perish, — to History we leave the sum and 
balance of thy merits and thy faults. The sins that were thine were 
those of the man to whom pleasure is all in all : thou wert, from root to 
branch, sap and in heart, what moralists term the libertine ; hence the 
light wooing, the quick desertion, the broken faith, the organized per- 
fidy, that manifested thy bearing to those gentler creatures who called 
thee ‘ Gentleman George.’ Never to one solitary woman, until the last 
dull flame of thy dotage, didst thou so behave as to give no foundation 
to complaint and no voice to wrong. But who shall say be honest to 
one, but laugh at perfidy to another? Who shall wholly confine 


NOTE. 


471 


treachery to one sex, if to that sex he hold treachery no offence ? So in 
thee, as in all thy tribe, there was a laxness of principle, an insincerity 
of faith, even unto men : thy friends, when occasion suited, thou couldst 
forsake ; and thy luxuries were dearer to thee than justice to those who 
supplied them. Men who love and live for pleasure as thou, are usually 
good-natured j for their devotion to pleasure arises from the strength oi 
their constitution, and the strength of their constitution preserves them 
from the irritations of weaker nerves. So wert thou good-natured and 
often generous ; and often with thy generosity didst thou unite a deli- 
cacy that showed thou hadst an original and a tender sympathy with 
men. But as those who pursue pleasure are above all others impatient 
of interruption, so to such as interfered with thy main pursuit thou didst 
testify a deep, a lasting, and a revengeful anger. Yet let not such vices 
of temperament be too severely judged ! For to thee were given man’s 
two most persuasive tempters, physical and moral, — Health and Power ! 
Thy talents, such as they were, — and they were the talents of a man of 
the world, — misled rather Ilian guided thee, for they gave thy mind that 
demi-philosophy, that indifference to exalted motives, which is generally 
found in a clever rake. Thy education was wretched; thou hadst a 
smattering of Horace, but thou couldst not write English, and thy 
letters betray that thou wert wofully ignorant of logic. The fineness of 
thy taste has been exaggerated ; thou wert unacquainted with the 
nobleness of simplicity j thy idea of a whole was grotesque and over- 
loaded, aud thy fancy in details was gaudy and meretricious. But thou 
hadst thy hand, constantly in the public purse, and thou hadst plans 
and advisers forever before thee ; more than all, thou didst find the houses 
in that neighbourhood wherein thou didst build, so preternaturally hid- 
eous that thou didst require but little science to be less frightful in thy 
creations. If thou didst not improve thy native village and thy various 
homes with a solid, a lofty, and a noble taste, thou didst nevertheless 
very singularly improve. And thy posterity, in avoiding the faults of 
thy masonry, will be grateful for the effects of thy ambition. The same 
demi-philosophy which influenced thee in private life exercised a far 
benigner and happier power over thee in public. Thou wert not idljr 
vexatious in vestries, nor ordinarily tyrannic in thy parish ; if thou wert 
ever arbitrary it was only when thy pleasure was checked, or thy vanity 
wounded. At other times thou didst leave events to their legitimate 
course, so that in thy latter years thou wert justly popular in thy parish ; 
aud in thy grave thy great good fortune will outshine thy few bad quali- 
ties, and men will say of thee with a kindly, not an erring judgment, 

11 In private life he was not worse than the Rufflers who came to this 
bar ; iu public life he was better than those who kept a public before 


472 


NOTE. 


him.” Hark ! those huzzas ! what is the burden of that chorus ? Oh, 
grateful and never time-serving Britons, have ye modified already for 
another the song ye made so solely in honour of Gentleman George ; and 
must we, lest we lose the custom of the public and the good things of the 
tap-room, — must we roar with throats yet hoarse with our fervour for 
the old words, our ardour for the new ? 

“ Here ’s to Mariner Bill, God bless him ! 

God bless him ! 

God bless him ! 

Here ’s to Mariner Bill, God bless him ! ” 





























































































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